XtraOrdinary Women is a phenomenal NGO that empowers Nicaraguan women at risk through skill training, psycho-social support and job placement programs. We sat down for
a chat with super-hero founder and childhood friend, Andrea Paltzer, as she told us her inspirational story.
”I was working as a teacher’s assistant for Schoolbox in Costa Rica, which is a Canadian organisation that helps thousands of underprivileged children go to school. It is
here where I realized my love and passion for helping people. And it is here I understood that change begins with education. In 2009 I was travelling around Nicaragua and
met some incredible women living in La Chureca, Central America’s largest landfill. This rubbish dump is home to thousands of Nicaragua’s poorest. The women living here have endured
so much hardship that we couldn’t even imagine. They were victims of violence, had no education and no opportunity. It made me think of the inequalities in the world. With many of them being so young, all the odds were stacked against them, and so many older women had just given up hope.
I felt the need to help and give them that hope.
I thought about what I could do and founded Chureca Chic, a jewellery company that creates fashionable pieces from upcycled materials from the very rubbish heap the women were living on. We worked with and trained the women from La Chureca. They had so much passion and also taught me to see the beauty in what others may just deem to be ‘rubbish’. Local artisans and designers volunteered, teaching the women new skills, exploring their creativity and also harnessing traditional techniques.
Just offering these women an opportunity and educating them made me realize there was more that I could do.
The incredible spirit of these women inspired me to create ‘Xtraordinary’. A programme that would teach women the skills they needed to get a job and also support them afterwards.
We focus on empowering disadvantaged women in Nicaragua to gain financial independence. We provide job skills training, job placements with local businesses, and most importantly, psycho-social support throughout. We provide the women with the tools they need to break the circle of poverty and domestic violence in their lives and bring positive sustainable change to them, their families, and eventually their communities.
We teach them about home finances, partner with universities to offer them courses and tools to study in their free time, child care assistance and support for their schooling. We always stay
in touch, as so many of these women are scarred from all the mental, physical and economic abuse they have suffered in their past. The psychosocial support is the most important aspect in ensuring we set these women up for sustainable success that lasts in the long term.
We can all help and contribute towards change. You can sponsor us; gift a woman an education for Christmas or buy some of our beautiful jewellery from Chureca Chic. Travel and tourism is slowly growing in the country that has so often been overlooked in favour of our neighbour, Costa Rica. What makes a difference is when you stay at local family-run beachside haciendas like on Playa Maderas and cliff-top lodges like Rancho Santana; locally run businesses that support, hire, and educate local communities.
We are excited to be expanding and replicating our model elsewhere. We are now working with cooperatives from marginalized communities in Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador so we can help more women. Since the pandemic, more women than ever are out of work and we need to work together to undo the damage.”
Andrea has inspired us to explore Nicaragua. This tropical playground boasts Lake Nicaragua – the largest freshwater lake in Central America – as well as colonial towns such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Granada and a lush volcanic island with UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status called Ometepe. There are also some of the best surf breaks in the world. However, the country still remains relatively undiscovered – allowing for so many opportunities for exploration and adventure.
