NICARAGUA IMMERSION EXPERIENCE: TRADE'S IMPACT ON THE POOR

The past three years, JCU has facilitated an immersion experience to Nicaragua allowing students to learn about the impact of trade on the economically poor. The student goups participate in a vareity of meetings and activities to better understand the reality of the coffee and apparel industries in a developing country. The students also stay with families for six to seven nights of the experience in both rural and urban settings, providing further insight into life in the Central American country.

JCU Immersion participants with members of the Sontule community near Estelli, Nicaragua. The community is part of the Miraflor cooperative, a farmer-owned organization producing organic and Fair Trade certified coffee.
A young Nicaraguan man carries a bag of Fair Trade certified coffee from the coffee fields toward the wet mill processing center where the coffee will be de-pulped and fermented before its initial drying stage.
JCU students (Natalie Terry '10, Andy Trares '10, Maggie Antonelli '10, and Alex Phillips '10) pick coffee in the Sontule community. Cooperative members pick coffee daily from approximately 6 AM until mid-afternoon during the coffee harvest season (typically January to March).
A panoramic view of the PRODECOOP coffee drying stations. PRODECOOP is a second-tier cooperative that produces green coffee by facilitating the "dry mill" process. Coffee is then available for export to roasters in the U.S. and other countries.
Members of a JCU group walk through a clothing factory in a Free Trade Zone near the Managua International Airport. The minimum wage for the apparel sector in Nicaragua is approximately $75.00 (US) as of January 2009. Apparel factories in Central America produce clothing for a variety of U.S. companies, often producing products for more than one company in the same factor at the same time.