Trip: Nueva Vida

My college, Bucknell University, operates a free health clinic in the community of Nueva Vida, outside of Managua, in Nicaragua. Through the school I went down for ten days to volunteer at the clinic, and have been wanting to go back ever since!

Some history: in 1999 Hurricane Mitch devastated Nicaragua, and many poor victims were resettled outside of Managua in what became Nueva Vida, or "new life." Students from my school volunteered in emergency relief efforts, and subsequently raised enough money for a free health clinic to be built in the new community. Since then, yearly delegations of current students and alumni have traveled to Nueva Vida to help supply clinic inventory and manual labor. Going to the second poorest country in this hemisphere (after Haiti) and meeting people living in desperate poverty is a unique learning opportunity for the students of a small private liberal arts university in Pennsylvania. It's been a goal of mine since I went to be a member of one of the summer alumni delegations so I can go back to Nicaragua again.