Quest for Peace Nicaragua
Quixote Center work in Nicaragua has gone through many phases since launching Quest for Peace in 1984 – read about our history here. Today, the Center supports poverty relief through economic development in Nicaragua by collaborating with local cooperatives. In 2025 we partnered with Peaceworks to provide a small loan to the El Porvenir coffee cooperative in Leon to enable them to harvest and process their crop. This loan replenished a revolving fund that the cooperative reinvests in their operation after selling their coffee.
In August 2025, Quixote Center worked in partnership with PeaceWorks and Green Empowerment to support cocoa producers in Waslala, members of the CacaoNica cooperative, to comply with organic certification requirements and increase their income by 30%. The Autonomous Communities in Electrification and Sanitation - ACES pilot project that culminated in December 2025 reached 40 families benefiting close to 200 people by installing:
40 photovoltaic systems (200kW)
31 ecological latrines
These life-changing systems not only increased the farmers’ productivity but significantly improved the quality of life of every family member, particularly the women and children of the household. With our partners we are planning on expanding this project to reach more cocoa producing families in Waslala in 2026.
15 years ago, we launched “Homes of Home,” our campaign to provide affordable housing to impoverished Nicaraguans since reconstruction efforts following Hurricane Mitch. In 2015, we partnered with the Roncalli Association to make housing more accessible for middle to low-income families.
On Sunday, November 7, Nicaraguans will vote for the president and vice-president of the country, as well as for the National Assembly and for Nicaragua’s representatives to the Central American Parliament. There has been a great deal of controversy about these elections circulating in the US and European media. One result is that the United States Congress just passed a new sanctions bill against Nicaragua (the RENACER Act) on Wednesday, November 3 in response to some of this controversy.
Over the weekend, I stumbled across a C-Span clip of Maureen Fiedler and Bill Callahan testifying before Congress about the U.S. embargo against Nicaragua and humanitarian aid shipments.
You can watch (or skim) the entire hearing on C-Span here. A clip of Bill and Maureen's testimony is can be viewed by clicking on the image below.
On Monday, November 16, Hurricane Iota struck Nicaragua about 15 miles from where Hurricane Eta made landfall 13 days prior.
Nicaragua was struck with a category 4 hurricane on Tuesday this week. Hurricane Eta formed and quickly strengthened in the Caribbean last week and into the weekend. It came to shore as a very strong, slow moving storm near Bilwi on the northern Atlantic coast, and cut across the northern part of the country, swelling rivers and dropping rain all around.
The famed Nicaraguan poet, priest and revolutionary Ernesto Cardenal died on March 1, 2020 at the age of 95. Over the years, many of the Quixote Center staff and our partners had met him. Even though he was a public figure, he was also known to be a man of the people, approachable and warm.
Read more about InAlienable.
Support Quixote Center’s InAlienable program!
InAlienable
Daily Dispatch
October 30, 2019
Read more about InAlienable.
Support Quixote Center’s InAlienable program!
InAlienable
Daily Dispatch
July 24, 2019
Read more about InAlienable.
Support Quixote Center’s InAlienable program!
InAlienable
Daily Dispatch
June 10, 2019
The following report is abridged from the Institute of John XXIII/Assocation Roncali's report on completing the first phase of housing in San Marcos, Nicaragua. The Quixote Center's Homes of Hope program was the principal funder of this housing initiative. We thank all of you who have supported the project thus far!
In 2014, the Quixote Center launched the “Homes of Hope” initiative in partnership with the Institute of John XXIII in Nicaragua. Since that time, we have delivered over $1 million to capitalize housing projects in Nicaragua and the campaign has raised nearly $1.6 million overall.
The program is delivered through two inter-related initiatives managed by the Institute of John XXIII: The Community Housing Program and the Family Housing Program.
The Quixote Center's Annual Report for 2018 is now available. If you like the work we are doing, please consider a tax-deductible contribution. You can designate funds to a specific program, or put it toward general funds that support all of our work.
[embeddoc url="https://www.quixote.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Annual-Report-2018-Final.pdf" download="all" viewer="google"]
