Brick by Brick, Side by Side

This is the story of a work brigade during a ten-day El Porvenir project outside of El Sauce in rural Nicaragua. El Porvenir is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating sustainable self-help water, sanitation and reforestation projects. The film starts with an image that signifies the reason why these work brigades are necessary a woman washing her clothes in a local stream, which is used for drinking water by both cattle and humans - water that is becoming polluted with phosphates and animal feces.

At first the brigade is unsure of their carpentry skills and the language barrier, but working side by side with the community, they build a community wash station one brick at a time.

Voice-over throughout the film describes one brigadistas experiences, and highlights the plight of the Nicaraguan people. Although this is a personal story, the film also incorporates video taken by one of the local El Porvenir employees, a reforestation expert. This enables us to demonstrate the broader scope of El Porvenir projects, and the way in which El Porvenir works with rural villagers from the ground up.

The full version of this documentary is 40 minutes. The English version is available with Spanish sub-titles, and a Spanish language version is also available.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• El Porvenir
• water
• Nicaragua
• American Lifeograph