Penn Nourish International and the Wake Forest chapter of Nourish have teamed up to conduct a service project at a Nicaraguan health clinic this summer.

Nourish International members from each school will volunteer in the tiny community of William Galeano on the outskirts of Managua.

Through a partnership with the organization Atraves, the students will help build a health-education lab and help clinic staff gain computer access.

Nourish International is a student movement to end global poverty. Penn’s chapter is three years old.  Penn Nourish International members spend the entire academic year planning their summer volunteer activities.

“Last summer we partnered with the NGO Young Africa in Mozambique. We helped build a storage shed and on the weekends, volunteered at the House of Blessings, a local orphanage,” says College sophomore Jean Lim, Nourish International Penn chapter leader. 

In the summer of 2009, Penn Nourish International sent members to Uganda to help a community develop a paper making business. The venture enabled local women infected with the AIDS virus to earn a living wage to support their families. They fashioned paper they made with their own hands into pages for scrapbooks they passed down to their children.

Penn Nourish International worked with the community to build benches and paint walls in unfurnished classrooms in a primary school and lay the foundation of AgriTech, the new Young Africa agriculture school building.

“I learned about the Nourish International Program freshmen year last fall at a student activities fair on Locust Walk,” Lim says. “When I saw the Nourish International table, I decided to give it a chance. It is comparable to Engineers Without Borders, except we don’t require a skill set. We emphasize that anyone and everyone can participate. Anyone who is interested in helping.”

Additional information about Penn Nourish International’s Nicaraguan health clinics sustainable health resources program is available at http://www.razoo.com/story/Wf-Penn.