Everyday people - Making our own good news

People are out there making a difference everyday. We just don't hear about them.

One important thing we're doing here is meeting them and sharing their stories of how their beliefs, their words and their actions impact their families, their communities and beyond.

And maybe we can find some inspiration to discover how we can, wherever we are.

So meet Alides, and pass his words on.
It's a like tiny revolution here, in 300 words, a photo and life thousands of miles away.

ALCIDES PULIDO MARTINEZ
Las Minitas, Nicaragua

Until a few weeks ago, preschool kids in the mountain community of Las Minitas were attending preschool in a shelter MacGuyvered by their parents with scrap wood and aluminum salvaged from the one-room elementary school that opened in 2011.

Their dream was to build a preschool of brick and wood and aluminum that would last generations, and prep kids for learning in higher grades.

They are doing so with the help of The Friends Project, a grassroots effort I founded that provides small grants to communities for their dreams, that have tangible and long-lasting improvement.

The Friend Project provided the $4,500 needed for materials and 2 masons: the community is pitching in labor and other materials.

"I have been here every day helping with the construction of the preschool," says coffee farmer Alcides. "It is important for the children here."

There are two main masons and sometimes helpers from El Sauce who have been working on The Friends Project preschool for three and a half weeks. Alcides has been organizing their food and the volunteers who are helping the masons. About 29 people from Las Minitas have pitched in or worked on the school, from helping the masons with hauling bricks and cement each day to the families who cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for them.

His son, Rolando Alcides Pulido, will study in the preschool in a few years, when he's old enough, and he wants to help the community.

A member of the tourism cooperative in Las Minitas, whose members provide tours of their traditional way of life, Alcides and his wife also host a tour in their house, teaching tourists and student groups how to make tortillas, grinding then mashing and shaping corn into flattened patties to bake on an open fire.

— ###The Friends Project, Making our own good news