Franklin and his family live in the Plan Grande community in Nicaragua. His community faced many hardships, one of the most grueling being the lack of access to clean water. Franklin often felt frustrated and hopeless about his community’s situation. That is until Franklin and his fellow community members created positive change for their community through the partnership and support of FH’s Multiply Your Donation. Read on to see how partnerships transformed the Plan Grande community.
The Need of a Community
In Plan Grande, most families rely on agriculture to make a living. They are extremely hard workers, and the added strain of having to travel to get drinkable water every day made their lives especially difficult. As an inhabitant and leader of Plan Grande, Franklin could clearly see the stress that issue was adding to the lives of his friends and neighbors.
“As a resident of this community, I was moved to see women — often carrying children in their arms — traveling long distances to collect water,” he explains. “It was also sad for me to see boys and girls leaving their homes early in the morning to look for water.”
Franklin often felt powerless to help people in his community. He knew change was needed but did not know what his particular role was in the situation.
“Before FH, my life was mired in conformism,” Franklin shares. “I knew that I was part of the community, but I did not care about its development. I did not know what to do when we had a need, my support management capacity was very low, and I was not looking for alternatives to improve my family and my community.”
A Project Offering Hope
In 2019, the local government of Plan Grande partnered with FH Nicaragua to make a positive change, offering training for community leaders, Child Sponsorship opportunities, and community transformation workshops. Franklin joined these programs, which started him on a journey that would transform his entire community.
After participating in the workshops and training sessions, Franklin and the other leaders in Plan Grande decided to get to work on the water problem facing their community. They created a Water Committee and wrote a letter to FH requesting support and funding to construct a well so that the entire population of Plan Grande would have access to safe water.
Through matching grants, FH donors’ gifts were multiplied 22x, allowing the life-changing water project to become a reality. Franklin served as president of the Water Committee, and — through generous supporters and partners — the community was able to complete the life-changing project.
More Than Water — A Community Transformation
Since the completion of the water project, Franklin’s life and the lives of all Plan Grande residents have drastically improved.
“We now enjoy the improved conditions through the water project. In the community, everyone is very satisfied and we can now enjoy happy faces [thanks to the] the availability of water in our homes.”
The water project changed Franklin’s life and allowed him to see the vast impact even one person can have on society. He and his entire community have hope. In addition to being hard workers, the residents of Plan Grande are now dreamers. They desire a complete spiritual, social, intellectual, and economic transformation and are ready to make that dream a reality.
“As leaders and inhabitants of Plan Grande, we believe that God will help us achieve our goals as a community,” Franklin said. “We are the main agents of change and transformation of our community!”
The collaboration between the community, local leaders, FH, and supporters made this community transformation possible.
Help Create More Success Stories
You can play a major role in transforming communities and changing the lives of people like Franklin. Matching grants through our government and agency partners will Multiply Your Donation. Your gift today will have 22x the impact! Your support will have an exponential effect on communities and families around the world.
In addition to the physical needs you will be helping to meet, your support will also gift hope. Thanks to FH supporters, Franklin went from feeling powerless to help his community to actively being involved in solving the problems they faced. By giving to Multiply Your Donation, you can support this transformation in people’s lives worldwide. Together, we can address the root causes of poverty and do more for more.
