Recent visits by Concordians to San Marcos have yielded an awareness of multiple new opportunities along with a chance to renew relationships with townspeople.
Expressions of strong interest came from San Marqueños for new cooperative initiatives:
The mayor of San Marcos has established a well-integrated plan for municipal solid waste management. He hopes to improve public health in San Marcos with the Committee’s purchase and donation of a $22,000 municipal garbage truck to take the place of a hopelessly old tractor and trailer that make weekly pickups around town and that have constant mechanical problems. The mayor is making efforts to combat the problems of diarrhea, lung disease, and skin infections in the citizenry through better waste management.
An educational psychologist and a child psychologist in San Marcos have designed a project to provide desperately needed services to young children in the neighborhood of Alvaro Mercado, a 150-house settlement that abuts the town center and the town cemetery. The neighborhood is notorious for its low level of education of its citizens and its high levels of unemployment, delinquency, and crime. Many children of the neighborhood are addicted to glue sniffing. Drug and alcohol abuse is endemic. These colleagues wish to improve the level of education of all inhabitants through extracurricular educational opportunities for the children and workshops for parents in health and hygiene, social behavior, food preparation, and employment skills. The project’s budget is $21,665 for the first year, another need the Committee
hopes to meet, at least in part.
The Sister Cities Committee is planning youth and adult travel missions with Concord churches so that Concordians can make direct contributions of their physical labor to the people of San Marcos and learn about Nicaragua in a spirit of generosity and friendship.
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