Seven Conant High School students had an eye-opening experience over winter break, taking a nine-day trip to Nicaragua, working with a nonprofit to build housing and experiencing other aspects of the country’s culture.
The students are part of the school’s Interact Club, a service group that has made similar trips to Nicaragua almost every year since 2015, as part of the nonprofit FNE International.
FNE International is an organization that works with developing nations to improve housing, health and education.
Patricia McCarthy, the Interact Club Faculty advisor and Conant Spanish and Latin teacher, said each year it’s a revelation for the students who commit to the trip.
“Probably the most satisfying aspect of these trips is the impact they have on students. One of the main things they say is they realize how many things they have that they don’t need,” McCarthy said.
While the trip exposes students to a variety of situations, including a Nicaraguan high school where they taught a class on New Hampshire (while speaking Spanish themselves) and conversed with students learning English, made visits to an apiary, a family of potters and an organic coffee business. These businesses are working with sustainable practices, and it’s another side of life students get to see, in addition to their main project of assisting in constructing a new home for a family.
It is by no means lavish, McCarthy said – the house is four rooms, made of brick and cement, with a wood stove and a dug latrine. But the family who received the house was on a waiting list for two years.
The Interact Club raised the $3,000 in material costs over the course of the year through fundraising, and students paid their own way to Nicaragua to see it built.
The disparity between their time in Nicaragua and their own lives is striking.
Senior Siobhan Day, 17, of Rindge, has been on the trip three times, and said it’s been a life-changing experience for her.
Everything from their sleeping arrangements to how they clean their clothes is different, Day said, and it’s a culture shock even when she thought she knew what she was going into.
“You read textbooks, you think you understand about poverty. But when you see it yourself, it gives you a new perspective,” Day said. “Going for the first time, I really had to step outside of my comfort zone, and realize it’s not always going to be a comfortable experience. But those are the moments of your biggest growth.”
Wren Wolterbeek, 18, of Rindge, said this year’s trip was her first travel experience, and something she’s wanted to do since she was a freshman.
“It’s the defining moment in my time in Interact, and the highest point in my time in high school,” Wolterbeek said. “While we were down there, our first day working on the house, there was this immense sense of fulfillment.”
Day said when she joined her first trip as a freshman, she already had an interest in pursuing a career in the nonprofit sphere. But her experiences in Nicaragua solidified it for her.
“It’s pretty eye-opening for them,” McCarthy said. “It opens up them up to the idea of what service is.”
In addition to coming to a new appreciation for the things they have, the group is also usually energized with a sense of purpose, because they can see first-hand how even contributions that may seem insignificant to them can have a large effect.
“They start to notice the things they can do to have an impact. You can start small,” McCarthy said.