Tag Archives: Nicaragua

Nationality + Migration

Central America News | Cuban Migrants

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Cuban asylum-seekers bound for U.S. stranded in Costa Rica and Panama as Nicaragua refuses entry
  • As the influx of Cuban asylum-seekers increases to levels not seen since 1994’s “raft exodus,” more than 6,000 have found themselves stranded in Costa Rica and Panama for the last six weeks after having been refused entry to Nicaragua, whose government is allied with Raúl Castro’s.
  • As Costa Rica has reversed its open transit policy for Cuban migrants, the Central American Integration System has arranged a massive airlift to El Salvador, allowing refugees to bypass Nicaragua, although thousands who began their journey in Ecuador are unaccounted for.
  • Emigrant Cubans, fearing a revision of the U.S.’s “wet foot, dry foot” immigration policy allowing Cubans who land in the U.S. a path to permanent residency, have taken to Central American land routes in addition to well-known routes by sea.

Read more:
“Central American countries agree airlift of Cuban migrants seeking to enter US” (The Guardian)
“Central American nations announce deal on Cuban migrants” (Miami Herald)
“Costa Rica deports Cubans amid ‘transit crisis’” (Deutsche Welle)

(Image Credit: Marcelino Rosario/EPA, via the Guardian)

Age, Health + Ability

Nicaragua Feature | Special-Needs Youth

Video

Empowerment, One Step at a Time

Nicaraguan families with children with special needs including autism and physical disabilities have discovered in psicoballet (“psychoballet”) an empowering form of therapy focused on developing children’s confidence and physical and emotional control. TeleSUR explores the impact of the therapeutic model that has migrated to Nicaragua since its inception in Cuba in the 1970s.

Watch the teleSUR feature on YouTube (in Spanish).

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Caribbean News | Afro-Latinas

Inaugural Latin American Afrodescendent Women Leaders’ Summit brings Afro-Latina leaders together to address community security
  • The summit convened in Managua, Nicaragua, bringing leaders together to address such issues as black women’s rights and protections, health, education, the environment, poverty reduction, and public services access.
  • Organizers aimed to use the discussions to adopt a shared political platform for Afro-Latinas throughout Latin America to combat the disproportionate impact of poverty and other socioeconomic barriers on black women.
  • Afro-Latinos make up between 20 and 30% of the population in Latin America, with complex histories of colonization, slavery, and migration making identification uneven.

Read the full story at teleSUR.

(Image Credit: Network of Afroamerican, Afrocaribbean, and Diasporic Women; via teleSUR)

Age
Nicaragua faces growing crisis as teens commit suicide at rates twice that of the rest of Latin America
  • 23.7 per 100,000 teens commit suicide in the country, keeping school authorities on constant alert for signs of depression and suicide ideation.
  • Mental health services are limited as 75% of Nicaraguans lack access to them and patients admitted after having attempted suicide cannot be forced to remain under observation without their consent.
  • Researchers and medical practitioners speculate on a number of potential causes, including broken homes, natural disasters, and post-conflict psychological effects.

“In my generation, there was ambition and heroism. … Now, there is only lack of opportunity, loss of hope, and a sensation of impotence. They see no other way.”

More on this story at GlobalPost.