Carlos F.

El Limonal sits adjacent to the city of Chinandega's municipal dump.  Chinandega is the 4th largest municipality in Nicaragua. It's mostly a working class business hub and there isn't a whole lot of flare to this place.  The farther in the outskirts of the city you go, the more poverty you will encounter. The city's trash dump, El Limonal, is the location of SuNica's first education and discipleship program. Many families pick through the trash in this dump site everyday looking for recyclables or anything else they can sell to make a living. When we first stumbled upon this community in 2009, we found kids picking through trash when they should have been in school.  As is the case in most rural communities in Nicaragua, most of the boys feel pressure around the age of 14 to leave school to begin working in the agriculture industry. The girls come under pressure to get married and start families as early as 15, which also leaves them with no chance of enhancing their job prospects through education.