SPROUT Nicaragua is an Alaska-based non-profit organization working in rural Nicaragua.  While our original goals were education-oriented: providing uniforms and school supplies to K-12 kids and university scholarships to those who made it that far, the time has come to make some changes. We will honor our commitments to the remaining handful of university students, seeing them through graduation, but have decided to suspend the uniform project for two reasons. First and foremost, the FSLN (aka the Sandinistas) have made youth and education a point of emphasis recently and are providing uniforms and school supplies to all children in need. But secondly, after over four years of giving this assistance, we have reached the conclusion that it is not perhaps the best use of our funds in the long term. Instead, we have decided to go in a different direction: providing rural families with more lasting and practical assistance in the form of wells, latrines, and when possible and necessary, basic housing.