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Pulsera Trip Stories
The Pulsera Project travels to Nicaragua twice a year with student volunteers who have led pulsera sales in schools across the country. These trips offer students a rich and often life-changing cultural exchange with the Nicaraguan youths that their sales have supported. Each student who travels with us writes an essay reflecting on their Nica experience that we send to an email list of supporters as well as to more than 4,000 Pulsera Project fans on Facebook. These essays offer not only a rich insight into the spirit of altruism and adventure that these trips are known for, but many times they also make strides at answering serious questions about the root of happiness, dreams, and the idea that we are all friends, we are all equals.
"ORCHIDEA"
Tom Laffay
WAVES OF CHANGE
NICA
DREAMS
Colin Crane
SLUMDOG TOURISM
Chris Howell
Chris Crane
La Chureca is an enormous municipal landfill where an estimated 1,500 people work and live. Co-Founder Chris Howell reflects on the humanity of this foreign land and sums it up best by saying, "what we need most is eachother."
Past, present, and future reflections on the Pulsera Project by co-founder Chris Crane. "We discovered somewhere along the way that the path to a richer life for U.S. students and young Nicaraguans was a road less traveled and one that was also infinitely more complicated and interesting."
"Economic status goes out the window at that point as every man, and woman, or child can choose to live his or her life in a way that is humble, passionate, and seriously beneficial for not only humanity, but for the natural world, recognizing our place as merely leaves in a forest."
Written in the early days of the Pulsera Project, co-founder Colin Crane explores some interesting ideas about dreams and happiness, and foreshadows the new direction the Pulsera Project has started to take in the past six months.
SAYING HELLO
Jamie Howell
Dismounting Our White Horses
ABBY SEBTON
To Flourish in a Wasteland
Jordan Graves
THE SOFT REVOLUTION
Kate Miller
University of Delaware student Kate Miller talks about the Pulsera Project's quiet revolution--one that doesn't involve blood or violence, but one that uses ideas to change the world in positive ways.
We're not riding into Nicaragua on white horses with the idea that we're the only ones with something to give. Tulane University Fresman Abby Sebton explores the Pulsera Project's "colorevolution" and the ways we're challenging traditional perceptions of "charity."
How many strangers have you said hello to today? In Nicaragua almost everyone you pass on the street smiles and says hello. Temple University student Jamie Howell talks about the differences between the US and Nicaragua in how we say hello to one another.
"That's Nicaragua right there: a wasteland where beauty has somehow managed to flourish."
Click here for a page with every story written since our first trip in 2009!
