About eight years ago, Maryanne Britten went to Nicaragua on vacation. She learned first hand of the desperate conditions in which the children live in this impoverished Central American nation. The plight of Nicaragua’s children so moved Maryanne that she decided to change her life to change the lives of the children in need. She ended her twenty-year career as an attorney specializing in children’s issues and trained to become a teacher.

To offer direct help and improve the quality of life for hundreds of children in Nicaragua, Maryanne had a little schoolhouse and shelter built to provide a home and an education for the suffering, the poor, and the run-away children. Since then, many of these dispossessed children have gone on to become productive citizens in their country, and they have returned to the school to help out a new generation of students, as well.

Maryanne currently works in Tulare, California, but she continues sending 800 dollars every month, a sizeable part of her teacher’s earnings, to keep the school in Nicaragua operating. In addition to paying many of the school’s expenses and maintaining the shelter’s staff, Maryanne even pays the children's parents, often poor, illiterate, and rigidly traditional, to allow their children to attend school.

Maryanne’s commitment never wavers -- and she never settles for comfort or convenience over achievement and action. Maryanne left a secure career in law to seek a new degree and a new career in education. And she completed a three-year bilingual teaching credential in just ten months so she could apply her skills to help Nicaragua’s poor and dispossessed children sooner, rather than later. Maryanne Britten has a heart that matches her abilities. She shows us the enormous good we can all do by applying what we learn to what we must do to make the world better for us all, especially those who are the most vulnerable and the least advantaged.
To learn more about Project Esperanza, please visit www.project-esperanza.org.

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