CREA (Nicaraguan Education Resource Center)

CREA is dedicated to enhancing literacy and fostering learning development for children and youth. We believe that education is the cornerstone of driving positive change and breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

At CREA’s Library + Learning Center and through outreach serving remote communities, we offer comprehensive support to participants from infancy through university, empowering children and youth with the essential educational resources to complete their schooling, pursue their dreams, and reach their full potential. This commitment is reflected in our three primary programs:

Library Services provides young learners and their families access to books and programming designed to promote reading proficiency, teach discrete literacy skills, inspire critical thinking, and foster a joy of reading and lifelong learning. Through CREA’s Mobile Library, a team of reading specialists and off-road vehicles go into the back country to put books into the hands of moms and their children living in the most remote and difficult to access regions of Nicaragua.

Academic Success provides children and youth with the critical individualized learning support needed to successfully become engaged in their education and complete school. The CREA team reinforces content taught in school through individualized and small group instruction at the CREA Library + Learning Center and through outreach to surrounding remote communities.

Youth Development supports the academic, social, and emotional growth of adolescents as they strive to reach their goals and create positive change in their communities. CREA bolsters their success through engaging elective classes and leadership development combined with life skills, financial literacy, and professional orientation training. We provide on-going health-related education for teen pregnancy prevention beginning in late primary school and extending through secondary school. CREA recognizes the inextricable tie between sexual health education and school completion for young girls and the lifelong obstacles created for girls who become pregnant at a young age. Finally, our scholarship program supports secondary school graduates as they pursue their dreams of completing higher education in order to enter into professions that allow for economic stability.