Building Better Roads in Nicaragua

Nicaragua has the lowest quality road infrastructure in Central America and is considered the poorest country in all of the Americas. The road network totals over 12,400 miles (in an area 1/3 the size of California), of which only 14 percent is paved and 75% are in poor condition. Nicaragua has a rural population of almost 2.5 million (about 42.7% of total population) and over half live on less than $1 dollar per day. This means that millions of people are dependent on an extremely low quality road network for all aspects of life (work, education, healthcare, etc.)

We are fundraising on GoFundMe in order to conduct a five day road engineering training course in the rural village of Morrito, Nicaragua. The course will provide about 20 Nicaraguan road engineers and builders with specific knowledge and skills needed to ensure that the rural roads they are building are constructed to avoid closure due to flooding and landslides, minimize environmental impacts, and are safe, reliable, and sustainable. 

The location of the training course was selected because it represents a typical rural village in Nicaragua where our contacts make it logistically feasible to organize an event. Morrito is the location of one of many rural government headquarters which is responsible for building and maintaining the country’s village roads. This fundraiser and the training itself is the first of its kind… we will use the funds to deliver an entire road training course to the people who need it the most… road engineers/builders working for the local municipalities in one of the poorest areas of the country. Morrito is a remote village that rarely ever sees the benefits of the many organizations fighting poverty in Nicaragua who tend to focus in areas with easy access to the capital city of Managua. The training site in Morrito has several nearby existing road projects which will be analyzed and discussed during the field trips. The attendees of this training will also be designing and building many more road projects in rural Nicaragua in the future.

The Situation
Billions of dollars are being spent around the world to improve access to rural communities through the construction of roads.  Too often, however, local construction workers and engineers have inadequate knowledge, experience, and resources resulting in poorly built roads and closures due to landslides, stream crossing failures, and flooding. This results in a wide range of long term negative environmental impacts such as slash-and-burn agriculture. In addition, increased transportation time and costs, or no transportation at all during periods of closure, leads to economic and social problems due to lack of access to health care, education, jobs, and markets. On a large scale, poor roads can reduce a regions’ gross domestic product and result in millions of people unable to lift themselves out of poverty.

The people of Morrito suffer the negative impacts of road problems on a regular basis. For example, when the current Alcaldesa (elected municipal governor) was just a child, her mother was unable to get medical care during a period of road closure and passed-away from an illness that could have been treated. She herself was recently infected with a food borne illness that could have been fatal, but luckily because of some recent road upgrades was able to make the 3 hour trip to a hospital. In another recent case, a truck load of cattle that was being delivered for sale tipped over while traversing a flooded stream crossing with an undersized culvert, and the animals nearly drowned and some suffered fatal injuries. Cattle are called “Ganado” in Nicaragua which literally means “money earner” because they are one of the few ways rural people can “save” and earn income. These stories are repeated over and over again across the region, country and rural areas in Latin America. 

The Solution
The solution is to invest in road infrastructure projects that provide high quality, dependable year-round access for rural communities. To do this efficiently, it is critical that the people on the ground, who are responsible to build and maintain these roads, are educated and understand best practices in road engineering. The proposed training project will give the local road engineers the knowledge and understanding to allow them to build better, more sustainable, safer, and environmentally friendly roads.

The course will include classroom presentations, engineering exercises, group projects, and field trips to nearby roads to analyze conditions, identify problems, and provide solutions. The week long agenda will be jam-packed with activities starting with breakfast and going into the evening, and will include a session open to the general public. Because most people in Nicaragua do not own a vehicle and cannot easily get from one town to another, we will rent out all available guest cabins in Morrito to provide housing for about 10 – 20 attendees so that engineers are able to attend from nearby communities. In addition, we will specifically seek out women who are working in the road industry and provide them a safe and inclusive environment.

A risk analysis was completed for this project to evaluate risks associated providing a training in a rural community: scheduling the training, power outages, slow internet service, housing for team, housing for trainees, transportation, and vehicle travel. The team has incorporated mitigation and avoidance measures into our plan to avoid pitfalls and ensure success.

Additional  Benefits
This project will have long term benefits because the attendees will be people who are working on-the-ground implementing rural road projects in their community.  We know from experience that these engineers currently only have the basic understanding of what makes a good road. During our previous visits to the area we noted that new roads certainly improved the economy of small villages; however, the recently constructed roads quickly deteriorated during the first rainy season due to inadequate drainage, poor site selection, incorrect materials, lack of compaction, and other issues that could be resolved with improved education of the designers and builders.

We will be video recording the presentations and field trips in order to create multi-media materials on road rehabilitation. These videos will be used in future workshops and will be posted on YouTube which is lacking materials on rural road engineering.  Internet is rapidly spreading across Latin America, and even in remote villages professionals are starting to watch videos on their mobile phones. In an effort to increase awareness of road issues in the region we will also issue a press release and invite Nicaraguan news media to attend. The training will draw attention to Morrito and could attract additional resources for road projects and other infrastructure needs. We will bring useful “conference schwag” in our luggage to give away, which in a country of extreme poverty will be greatly treasured. Finally, we will use social media to inform people about the project with regular updates.

Our Team
Our team is undertaking this project because of a desire to share our knowledge to help improve the lives of people who need it most.
The team includes:
1. Gordon Keller, a retired US Forest Service Geotechnical Engineer with over 40 years of experience working on road engineering projects and teaching similar workshops in developing countries. Gordon will be the primary instructor/trainer with a focus on engineering.
2.  Ethan Casaday, an environmental compliance planner with over 20 years of experience in erosion control, watershed management, and rural road rehabilitation. Ethan will manage finances of the project and co-instruct with a focus on environmental management and GIS technology.
3.  Maria Elena Casaday, a native of Nicaragua with 20 years of experience in teaching, business management, and communication. Elena will be our primary coordinator and organizer.

Support from the community of Morrito comes from Alcaldesa Eda Medina who will invite engineers and other elected officials from surrounding municipalities who are implementing road projects, help ensure participation of women, provide vehicles and drivers for the field trips, and who will give the opening welcome remarks at the training. In addition, we will be hiring several temporary Nicaraguan staff from Morrito to assist with organizing the event, driving, and filming. Our contacts include community members who can provide lodging to the trainees, as well as the owner of a small restaurant close to the “Casa Comunal” (Community Center) where we will provide the training and food for attendees.

Funding Needs
We will use the funds to pay for airfare, food and lodging for Mr. Keller, Mr. Casaday, and project coordinator Mrs. Casaday. Funds will be used pay stipends to the Nicaragua support team and pay expenses for lodging and food for the attendees. Our expenses include renting a 4-wheel drive vehicle and paying for the fuel for the Alcaldesa’s vehicles to transport the attendees to field sites. We also need a high lumen projector that functions in well-lit areas, a video camera to capture the presentations, a temporary internet service provider to provide Wi-Fi at the training center, and a GPS receiver to use for mobile data collection.

Please Help
Join us in helping to improve the lives of rural residents who depend on good roads to access schools, hospitals, banks, supplies and markets to allow them to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.  This will be a historic event in Morrito that will have lasting benefits to families living across the region.

To contribute to this campaign please view the GoFundMe site here... https://www.gofundme.com/viaroadsnica  Your donation is very much appreciated!

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Very best regards from the road training team!