Casa Llanta Fund

The Casa Llanta Fund pays for textbooks at Escuela Adelante in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.Escuela Adelante developed organically from free English classes based out of the local library. Co-founding director Carrie Valladares, an attorney for Microsoft in Seattle, envisioned bringing international education standards to San Juan del Sur in the form of a new type of international school. With program guidance from co-founding director Jamie Hunter, an American teacher and San Juan del Sur resident with a masters degree in education and child development, and the support of a dedicated teaching staff, the program has blossomed into the vibrant bilingual language learning center that it is today.

The program is a 2 year English language course taught in congruence with the ESL course at UPOLI (Universidad Politecnica de Nicaragua) with books sourced from the Oxford University Press.  The school is accessible and has a locally tailored fee structure to establish a sense of worth to the program but without prohibiting attendance from any eager local student. [Read more…] about Escuela Adelante: A New Kind of International School

Manos Unidas is a cooperative for adults with disabilities in San Juan del Sur. The program was founded by Bastin Vrancken and Brooke Rundle and currently funded by donations received through the Casa Llanta Fund.  The cooperative meets on weekdays in the San Juan del Sur library to congregate, learn and produce products. Manos Unidas translates to “hands together” which signifies the culture of teamwork and togetherness within the cooperative.   [Read more…] about Manos Unidas

Drive 6.6km south of San Juan del Sur and then through a jungle of howler monkeys over multiple dried river crossings and you eventually arrive at a 3km-long gorgeous sandy white beach producing enough variety of right and left breaks to satisfy the soul of any surfer. Mostly restricted until about two years ago, Playa Hermosa has opened its gates for locals and tourists of all ages and is a perfectly positioned beachfront rock n’ roll paradise. This was the backdrop for the 5th annual Pitaya Festival. [Read more…] about Pitaya Festival