(Donna Tabor with boys at the filming to document Café Chavalos project in Nicaragua.)

Donna Tabor
Granada, Nicaragua

A Cash Donation in honor of Donna Tabor will be given to Building New Hope (BNH), a volunteer driven 501(c)(3) organization based in Pittsburgh, PA, and Granada, Nicaragua. Building New Hope has been supporting grassroots development projects in Central America since 1992. Volunteers actively assist communities in El Salvador and Nicaragua by selling fairly traded organic coffee, operating career training centers, alternative schools and literacy programs for underserved and at-risk youth, and funding income-generating projects for women and community organizing initiatives. Building New Hope has organized people-to-people work delegations, developed alternative energy projects, and supported emergency relief and reconstruction efforts to assist victims of catastrophic events. For more information about Building New Hope, log on to www.buildingnewhope.org.

• Nominator: Terry Ryan Kane D.V.M.,M.S., friend and volunteer
• Category: Non Governmental Organization

Global Understanding

From the first project in El Salvador to her present work in Nicaragua, Building New Hope,  Donna Tabor’s persistence has successfully promoted a flexible, community-to-community approach to development based on a vision of “globalization” that puts people first by promoting democratic, sustainable and healthy communities.

Commitment & Impact

Building New Hope moved on to focus its energy on Nicaragua when Donna Tabor, a former Peace Corp volunteer, decided to settle there and dedicate her efforts to the needs of the local community. Under Tabor’s creative guidance, BNH has been developing alternative education and vocational skills training programs as well as responding to health and nutritional needs. BNH initiatives include:

• a school and residence for Barrio children
• an innovative program bringing the love of music to impoverished children
• an alternative educational program for young children, many without formal schooling 
• a reading program, bringing books into the schools and pioneering the first lending library in Granada 
• a program providing scholarships, cultural field trips and mentoring opportunities for young adults  
• a veterinary clinic for street animals and work horses 
• an internationally renowned culinary arts workshop and restaurant run by at risk teens
• a coffee project partnered with a worker-owned coffee cooperative in Pittsburgh

• “In light of an increasing anti-American sentiment we all are aware of, Donna’s work in this poorest of Central American countries, shines as a testament that American people care, that we are citizens of the world and we are not our government. She has lived here 13 years following her Peace Corps time. She has stood the test of time which is so important here.” said Terry Ryan Kane D.V.M., M.S., traveler, veterinarian, a public health official, and volunteer.

• “Donna Tabor serves a frustrated and violent population: most of her boys have been abandoned by their families and have lived through homelessness, drug addiction and gang violence.…(Her) programs—from education to employment—are effective because they are based on one pragmatic principle: these young men will improve their lives if they are given a realistic chance for self-empowerment.” Said Dan Wagner, math teacher and volunteer.

 
Background