Hello Everyone,

Co-directors Brooke and Rafael here, representing Quetzaltrekkers Leon.

We are a not-for-profit organisation based here in Leon, Nicaragua. Supported by a highly dedicated group of volunteers and local staff, we offer adventurous guided hikes through the volcanoes in the surrounding areas of Leon. We then donate the profits to locally-run projects working with disadvantaged youth.  We have grown sustainably since we began in 2004. With increasing revenues we have continually increased our donations. Since February 2017; we have made regular donations to four local projects, and our self-created scholarship program.

However, the reason we are creating this campaign is because the current situation in Nicaragua has caused a huge disruption to our organisation, and to the lives of the people that rely on our support.  Since the protests began on 19 April 2018, the situation has deteriorated with ever increasing violence on the streets and ever greater restrictions on travel.

Quite simply, tourists are not visiting Leon, which means hikes are not running, and with the situation still unstable, this leaves us in a fragile position. Thus, we have decided to close temporarily.  Without the revenue being generated from hikes, this directly affects the profits that are available to donate to our projects. 

That leads on to the reason we have created this campaign. Through the scholarship programme; we currently support 23 disadvantaged children and youths with their school and university education.  In these unstable times, the children and youths need our support the most. We are therefore asking for contributions, however big or small, which will go directly to sustaining our scholarship programme. 

If we are unable to continue donating to our scholarship programme, this could leave the people we have supported without continued access to education, and render the support we have provided to them over the prior years’ fruitless. With that, o ur goal is to raise enough to support these children until the end of the year in hopes that at that time, we will be able to re-open. Any funds surpassing our goal with go directly to the other projects we support.

We will be releasing more information on this fundraising campaign in the near future, including profiles of each of the students we support, so please keep an eye out for this.

Thank you.