On September 25, 2015, the United Nations officially adopted the 17 Sustainable Development goals for 2030. These new goals include “ending poverty in all its forms everywhere; ensuring inclusive and quality education for all and promoting lifelong learning; and bolstering affordable and clean energy” (see here). How do we at Sister Communities of San Ramón, Nicaragua (SCSRN) help achieve these goals for San Ramón, thus contributing to this global effort? Read how our work brings the United Nations (UN) and the world closer towards completing these goals and how your involvement with us will achieve this global mission to make the world a better place.

SCSRN’s Local Initiatives, which are projects identified by the San Ramón community, help reach many of the Sustainable Development Goals. Our support of Los Pipitos, the center that serves children with physical and intellectual disabilities, advances San Ramón towards the UN goal of “building and upgrading education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.” One of the many services that La Casa del Niño, another program we fund, does includes combating child malnutrition, thus contributing to the goal of zero hunger by “ending all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age.” The Municipal Library in San Ramón that SCSRN helps to sustain promotes the goal of quality education by 2030 in that this facility “ensures that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy.”

Quality education continues to be a main target for our work within the SCSRN Initiatives, which are projects established by the organization SCSRN. The Rural Schools Partnerships (RSP) program promotes the goal of “ensuring that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes” as well as “ensuring that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education.” SCSRN also recognizes as does the UN that “undeveloped infrastructures limit access to health care and education” thus our ongoing construction projects cultivate “quality infrastructure that is positively related to the achievement of social, economic and political goals.”

Our Strategic Partnerships with local NC Rotary Clubs and solar companies also reach towards the goal of “building resilient infrastructure, promoting sustainable industrialization and fostering innovation.” Read here how our partnership with the South Granville Rotary Club helped the San Ramón high school provide better education for all its students. Finally, our projects with United Solar Initiative contribute to the goals of “expanding infrastructure and upgrading technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in developing countries, in particular least developed countries; ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services; increasing substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix; and doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.”

Please join us in San Ramón in reaching these Sustainable Development Goals, for Nicaragua and for the whole world. Explore our website to see how you can donate to our wonderful projects and also to learn how you can come and see our work in action by joining or creating an ecotour with us! SCSRN is a close-knit, devoted group of people in the U.S. and in Nicaragua that is dedicated to improving life on this planet – you are welcome to become a partner with us in this global effort to make our world thrive!

Kristine Markatos-Soriano
International Education Coordinator