Nueva Esperanza is home to approximately 100 families (550 people), originally from the Department of Chalatenango. As war broke out in the early 1980s, these families fled their community and ended up in Nicaragua, where they joined an agricultural cooperative outside of Managua. In the cooperative, men and women worked together in the fields, lending to more progressive views of gender equality.

Nueva Esperanza has a fairly extensive infrastructure that includes a school that serves grades K-8, a high school that serves the entire Lower Lempa region of Usulutan, an informal Child Development Center, a library and computer center, a church, a community center, a small health clinic, a community corn grinder, and a community-run guesthouse. And though agriculture is the primary economic activity, Nueva Esperanza also has a number of stores, a sewing cooperative, and a bakery, as well as an active agricultural cooperative.

Nueva Esperanza’s local government is run by a community association elected every year. There are a number of community organizations including an ALGES chapter, an active youth group, a Pastoral Center of the Sisters of the “small community,” and others. Nueva Esperanza also has a number of well-organized cultural activities including a theatre group, a dance troop, and a new music group that plays throughout the region.

For a brief history on Nueva Esperanza, visit: http://iisd.net/50comm/commdb/desc/d47.htm