HELP US HELP THEMYou can help children and elders and their communities by hosting a Living Unbound Sunday in your own community. With you, we can reach more people and find more sponsors for those in need. Read the insert included in this mailing for more information about hosting an information table in your neighborhood.

WEAR YOUR HEART ON YOUR SLEEVEBe our walking advertisement. Unbound now sells T-shirts, mugs, bags and other gear. Wear your Unbound shirt to help raise awareness for sponsored friends around the world. Get your swag at Unbound.org/store.

BELONGING

JANUARY 2015

IMPACT

NICARAGUAN MIGRANTS IN COSTA RICA FACE ISOLATION

Rafael Villalobos, Unbound-Costa Rica.

(continued)

Nicaragua sees far fewer child migrants making the trip north to the U.S. than its Central American neighbors

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Nicaraguan families have for decades, however, migrated south into Costa Rica.

A little more than a third of all sponsored children and their families in Costa Rica are migrants from Nicaragua, said Rafael Vil-lalobos, coordinator of Unbound's program based in San Jose, Costa Rica. He said the number may be as high as 60 to 70 percent in Costa Rican communities bordering Nicara-gua. In all, it's about 2,500 families.

"The role of Unbound in Costa Rica in this situation with migrants is to be a light of hope for them. We tell them they have open doors in our hearts, in our centers, in our offices," Rafael said. "We try to support them in everything we can, not only sponsoring their children, but also creating a sense of solidarity

in the community. "Many of them come [across the border into Costa Rica] with

only the clothes they are wearing."Besides extreme poverty Nicaraguan migrants face isola-

tion and blame for crime, lack of jobs and other societal problems, Rafael said. The Unbound pro-gram creates a space for migrant families to feel welcome, and gain access to education and other opportunities to help them break through pov-erty. It also addresses immediate needs such as food and clothing when migrant families arrive.

Natural disasters, political instability and eco-nomic troubles dating to the 1970s have resulted in several waves of migration from Nicaragua to Costa Rica, the International Organization for Migration reported on its website. The largest was around 1984

when more than 50,000 refugees fled Nicaragua for Costa Rica to escape an internal armed conflict, the IOM said.

1 ELMWOOD AVE., KANSAS CITY, KS 66103 800.875.6564 MAIL@UNBOUND.ORG UNBOUND.ORG ©UNBOUND 2015

Events in Nicaragua, including the ouster of the Somoza regime in 1979 and the Sandinista revolution and war with Contra rebels in the 1980s, spurred an influx of migrants that continues today, Rafael said. Nicaraguan families in Unbound cite jobs and educational opportunities for their children as the main reasons for migrating to Costa Rica.

Nicaraguans in Costa Rica generally work at harvesting cof-fee and melons or in construction. The jobs aren't stable and offer minimal economic security, Rafael said.

Sponsorship through Unbound helps families ensure they will be able to afford education for their children, and it con-nects them to a community where they can belong.

Workshops offered by Unbound seek to counter cultural divides and promote unity among families from diverse back-grounds. When children are sponsored their mothers become part of small support groups in their communities.

The groups are referred to as "circles of hope" because the mothers sit in circles at meetings to demonstrate equality among members. The mothers share ideas, discuss problems and support each other in efforts to move their families for-ward economically and socially.

"There are Nicaraguan mothers and Costa Rican mothers and mothers from Honduras, too," Rafael said. "They have learned to be fraternal as sisters, and that's a sign. It's a small sign that our world can be different."

(continued from front)

‘We are one family’

At the heart of the movements of immigrants from Latin America are thousands of sto-ries of personal loss.

Francisco and Martiza had a successful pine-apple farm and a comfortable life in Nicaragua until their son, Mario, was born with extensive health issues. Paying for his medical care depleted the family’s resources and they lost everything. After their second child, Marjorie, was born they moved to Costa Rica. Both children are sponsored through Unbound.

After 12 years the family feels settled into their new country. What discrimination they have experienced has been mostly indirect. Marjorie, now 16, has borne the brunt of it in school, but Martiza encourages her. “I always told her, feel proud of being Nicaraguan. One has to be proud of the country, of the blood one has. One has to be grateful for what you have.”

That thought is echoed by Luis, 87, and his

wife, Lillian, 73, sponsored elders in Unbound’s program in Costa Rica. Luis was at one time the director of a music school in Nicaragua, where he taught his future wife. He lost everything in the devastating Managua earthquake of 1972.

As he was rebuilding, now with a family, the increased militarism following the overthrow of the Somoza regime brought new instability to the country. With two children they didn’t want to lose to armed conflict, Luis and Lillian moved their family to Costa Rica.

Luis was able to purchase a small plot of land with money he made by selling his piano. After living in a shack for many years, the family is now building a permanent home.

Luis expressed the feelings of many immigrants when he said, “My heart is broken into two pieces — my love for Nicaragua and the love for my adopted country, Costa Rica.”

Migrant families share their personal stories

The Unbound program focuses on unity and stresses that "we are one family," Rafael said.

"In God's project, in God's people there are no divisions of race, or culture, or religion, or political divisions or boundaries," he said.

The belief at Unbound is that diversity can serve to unify instead of separate.

"That's my hope, and in Unbound we are trying to do it," Rafael said.

HONDURAS

NICARAGUA

COSTA RICA

San Jose

Managua

Tegucigalpa

Total population of Costa Rica as of 2013:

4.9 millionImmigrants (2013) as

a percentage of the population:

8.6%

Mario and Marjorie are siblings who are both sponsored through Unbound.

Sponsored elders Lillian and Luis enjoy time together at home.

Source: International Organization for Migration