doTERRA Helping Hands did a great write up on their website about our partnership in Nicaragua!
Every year during monsoon season, the pacific coasts of Nicaragua experience devastating destruction at the hand of massive monsoon waves and powerful flooding. These coasts are defenseless against this destruction, leaving local families homeless as their foundationless houses are swept away in the storm.
During a humanitarian trip with the non-profit organization Color My World during the summer of 2016, doTERRA Wellness Advocate and Color My World Founder Angela Hughes watched as a Nicaraguan family’s home was swept away in the flood before their eyes. This experience reminded Hughes of the necessity of their work in Central America.
Color My World is a non-profit organization committed to relieving human suffering through sustainable projects with community locals in Central America. For the first several years of Color My World’s efforts to bring hope and healing to communities in Central America, they relied solely on small donations and personal funds to support their work. Eventually, however, Hughes realized that in order for her humanitarian efforts to have a more significant impact, they were going to need corporate sponsorship.
In 2016, Hughes was connected with the doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation™ and with the help of doTERRA leaders Shane and Rebecca Hintze, enough money was raised to support a humanitarian project with Color My World. The project involved a trip to Central America where volunteers built new houses for community members whose living quarters had been destroyed by monsoons and costal erosion. While on the trip, volunteers also provided hygiene and dental kits to Central America locals, worked on projects in a local orphanage, taught English, and provided meals.
This campaign with Color My World and the doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation helped fund the building of four homes in a developing community in this area of Nicaragua. The community is providing opportunities for Nicaraguans, including bringing running water and electricity to this community and promoting trading among community members.
Furthermore, these homes are usually the first that these families have lived in without a dirt floor. These two-bedroom, fifteen-square-foot homes not only provide safety, shelter, and refuge for families, but because of their concrete foundations, they will likely remain standing for several generations. These families will no longer have to worry about their homes being swept away in the storm every year.
Building homes isn’t the only aid that Color My World provides to the locals of Central America. During their trip, volunteers also taught English so that community members have expanded skill sets and can acquire consistent jobs in the workforce to support themselves and their families. Volunteers also supplied orphanages in the area with art supplies and participated in food programs to help provide food to particularly impoverished areas of Nicaragua.
