The Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign

A news story in the UK's Evening Leader taught us about a group from Wales who organize fundraisers to help people in Nicaragua. The group is called the Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign. Led by David McKnight, the group is about to take another trip to Nicaragua to help families that were hurt by Hurricane Felix.

The group operates a blog on Word Press. The Evening Leader's story tells us what the group hopes to do on their latest trip.

It will be the 32-year-old's fourth trip to Central America's poorest country, which he has visited every two years since 2001 as a member of the Wales Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, which was founded 20 years ago to help struggling families, promote fair trade and create links between the two countries.

David, of Mynydd Isa, and six other campaign members from across Wales will leave on their latest trip on Valentine's Day and will visit Los Quinchos Centre, which works with children who live and work on the huge la Chureca rubbish dump in the capital city of Managua, and who have no choice but to scavenge in order to survive.

The group will also travel to Bilwi on the Caribbean coast, which suffered huge amounts of damage when Hurricane Felix struck the region a year ago. The hurricane killed hundreds of people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes, including entire villages.

David said: "One of the reasons why we are travelling to Bilwi is to see if there is any support we can provide, to help with the long term reconstruction of the area."

Before returning home to begin raising money for those in desperate need of help, the group will stay on a Fairtrade coffee farm in Matagalpa, in the mountains in Nicaragua.

David said: "The campaign has promoted Fairtrade coffee and sesame from Nicaragua for over a decade.