Deyvi (13) is one of our four students who with the support of Hotel con Corazón is studying at the private school Salesiano.

He went to primary school at Bertha Gutierrez and in the afternoon attended the tutoring and English classes from the tutoring team of Hotel con Corazón. And now he is at a private high school in the city of Granada. An adventure and above all a matter of perseverance.

At 5 o’clock in the morning the alarm wakes Deyvi, because he must be on his bike at 6, in order to be at school on time. Classes start at 6.45 am. The past few weeks his mother let him go by bus, because it’s so terribly hot and the bike ride in the drought and the dust is very tiring these days.

It is a big challenge for Deyvi to be in the classes at his new school. Most of his classmates have been in a private school before and therefore have an advantage over him. For example, he didn’t have English at school, except for the last year with Eva from Hotel con Corazón. Besides, in Nicaragua the quality of education in public schools is lower than in private schools.

 So the first report of Deyvi was a little bit disappointing. We are working on that, starting with extra guidance of one of our tutors every week. We also offer him the use of the computer and the Internet in the hotel. At home he does not have that and he gets several research tasks from the teachers. Deyvi is also very pleased with the computer classes that he attends on Saturday mornings. Hotel con Corazón was able to start with these computer classes for secondary education early this year because we received a donation of 10 laptops. The students are super motivated. They like the classes by tutor Georleny very much.

We hope Deyvi can be a role model for other students in the communities of Las Lagunas. By showing that it is possible to study, even if you come from a poor family. We hope students like him will be making the difference in Nicaragua.

It’s still a long way to go, and step by step, we are learning what is the best way as well. Most of all, Deyvi has to show a lot of perseverance and we will help him with that as much as possible.

We believe that education is not only learning to read, write and calculate, but that it is also important to have fun during the learning process. That is why every now and then we take our students of the Bertha Gutierrez and San Pablo schools out of the classroom!

On March 21 we took some students to celebrate International Water Day. We invited 12 of our students of both schools to come with us to an event that several organizations together arranged for the people in Granada. There were recreational activities like bags running, face painting and a theatre play, and through several information stands our students learned about the importance of water and how to save water, keep it clean and filter water in an intelligent way. The reality of most of our students is that they have a couple of hours of running water a day in their homes and that they live near to a lake which still has fish, but the number is reducing quickly.

 

Another activity we started last year is to organize sport classes for 4^th, 5^th and 6^th grade of primary school. We work together with Soccer Without Borders. This organization uses football as a catalyst for positive social change and helps disadvantaged young people overcome their personal difficulties and pursue new opportunities. Every week two girls from this organization go to our schools where they teach different fun sport exercises, meanwhile teaching two boys from the community how to manage these activities and be a leader for the students. So the students have fun and two people from the community are provided an extra job.

In the coming months we will start with creative workshops given by graphic studio La Sirena. We will keep you posted!

For Hotel con Corazón, 2012 was a year full of highlights. The occupation rate rose from 58% in 2011 to 67% in 2012. February even turned out to be our best month ever, with an occupancy rate of a staggering 93%!

Our revenues showed a similar growth: $ 277K in 2012, compared to $ 206K in the year before. Since we have been able to limit the costs of running the hotel, our profits more than doubled last year: from $ 57K to $ 116K (before depreciation, taxes and reservations). 2012 was the first year in which we were profitable in every single month – even in the slowest months September and October.

Corazón Trips, our experience trips, matured in 2012 and contributed $10K to our profit.

That is good news – but even better if you take into account that our profits are invested in educational projects!
• We gave classes to 115 students in the two schools in Las Lagunas – meaning tutoring classes, homework classes and English classes.
• We supported 4 university students financially.
• Two other NGO’s on education in Granada received financial support from Hotel con Corazón.
• Last but not least, eight Corazón employees are studying with the help of the hotel. Three employees have a special savings arrangement with the hotel, to help them finish their university.

A ‘thank you’ goes out to our wonderful guests who made this happen. We are ready for an evenly fabulous 2013!

Hotel con Corazón aims to open 10 new hotels in the next 10 years! To achieve this, we are looking for partners that match our ambition and share our values. Info session in Amsterdam on 6 February 2013.

Hotel con Corazón has been the top-1 tourist destination in Granada almost since the opening in 2008 and has invested in education support to 150 children in local schools. Our next ambition is to conquer the world …

To open 10 hotels in the next 10 years we are looking for Entrepreneurs con Corazón and Social Investors that want to work with the Corazón team on our expansion.

Wanted: Entrepreneurs con Corazón
The Corazón concept can be implemented anywhere in the world: from developed to developing countries. As long as there is a tourism market and a need for better education. To achieve this we are looking for Entrepreneurs con Corazón with the ambition to set up a Hotel con Corazón anywhere in the world and manage it for a while.

In addition, we are looking for social investors who want to invest in the expansion of a proven social enterprise concept.

Are you interested in working with the Corazón team to grow Hotel con Corazón … read more.

Info Session in Amsterdam on February 6
If you are located in the Netherlands, please join us for the 10×10 Expansion Info Session on Wednesday February 6 in Amsterdam.
Sign up for the event on Facebook, or send us a mail.

Last week we received new key-rings in Hotel con Corazón. Beautiful hearts made at Corazon Contento (Happy Heart), a comprehensive development centre for disabled people based in Granada. Corazon Contento is a not-for-profit organization that promotes and encourages social integration of disabled people and is working on improving the quality of their lives, and of that of their families.

The center offers various services: Stimulation and Early Attention (0-5 years), Occupational Therapy (adults over 18), counseling families, etc. The occupational therapy service aims to provide users attention so that they are emotional and psychological feeling well and get a maximum of social integration and autonomy.

One therapy is a paper workshop and this is where our new key rings in the form of a heart were made. The people in the group all have there individual task and plan of support. One person is cutting the newspaper in tiny pieces, another one is making the paper maché and a third one is putting it in a mold.
Impressive to see how these persons are concentrating on their tasks with a big smile on their face. Perfectly matching with Hotel con Corazón!

www.corazoncontentogranada.org

Only 12 kilometers between Hotel con Corazón and our education projects in Las Lagunas. Yet there is a world of difference between these two locations.

On her way to the schools, Geertje van der Pas, since this spring in charge of the Corazón education program, contemplates the differences ánd the similarities.

Hopping in the van to go to the schools, I realize again that the contrast with the hotel is enormous. Two different worlds linked by Hotel con Corazón. The hotel is nice, clean and cozy. Las Lagunas, the rural area on the outskirts of Granada where we run our tutoring program, is poor: small wooden houses with dirt floors, poor sanitation, some chickens, a pig or a lean horse and many, many children.

Yet I discover two similarities: the peace and the greenery. The atmosphere in the hotel is always relaxed and that is the same in Las Lagunas. And both locations have a view on the Mombacho Volcano. Actually this one is won by Las Lagunas. From the hotel the view is distorted with electric wires and you have to stand outside the hotel to see the Mombacho. In Las Lagunas you can enjoy this beautiful picture right from your hammock. I wonder if people who live here have time and attention to enjoy this view?

Reviews
My husband Joost and I have been working half a year now at Hotel con Corazón. The hotel gets great reviews on TripAdviosr: “excellent”, “fantastic”, “nice staff”, but for the education program type kind of feedback does not exist. Our students do not post reviews on how they at last succeeded recognizing the letter ‘z’ or ‘t’, or how they enjoyed a computer game to make sums. Or the fact that their “profi” gave them a hug, which made him feel good. When I am at the schools, I see that the children are motivated; they really work hard and they are increasingly at ease with our tutors. The tutors notice that the children’s behavior has changed a lot: they no longer fight immediately, but try to solve problems with words instead. They have learned to have respect for the other, and for themselves.

Grouping
At present Hotel con Corazón contracts eight tutors, one English teacher and an educational manager. Four tutors work at a daily basis at Bertha Gutierrez and the other half at San Pablo. The English teacher goes once a week to both schools and two mornings she works with 1st and 2nd graders in secondary school. She also teaches English to the hotel staff. The education team is made up of women only, which is not always easy. Chatter and gossip do occur, but it seems to be a lot better than last year. Skarleth, my counterpart and I are open about this “virus” (as they have called it themselves) and we talk about it individually and in group meetings, with a positive result. Everybody recognizes the improvement, but a male tutor would be more than welcome!

Excuses
At the same time I struggle with the actual results we are achieving. How do we measure them? Attendance is important and easy to measure, but would I walk two hours through the pouring rain on a dirty slippery mud road to get extra lessons? Or would I not obey my father who wants me to help with the harvest? Or my mother when she asks me to look after my little sister, while she goes to the hospital with my brother? And so there are many other excuses, passing by every week. And that why attendance sometimes drops to 79 or 82%. But we are strict. When a child is really too often absent and we’ve talked to the parents more than once about this, a child may no longer participate in our program. However, this is never an easy decision to make.

Another instrument to measure the results is the reading and math test we conduct twice a year. The tests show that the children are advancing, some go quickly, others more slow. We also note that a majority of the children in our program have better scores than the children that don’t participate in our tutoring classes. But are these outcomes really the result of the Hotel con Corazón program? This is difficult to prove, because our education program is not a laboratory but a real life learning project.

A choice between education or love
I dare to say with certainty that our Corazón children definitely learn to read and write and that some of them otherwise would not have achieved this. Furthermore, I am convinced that the tutors -due to the personal attention they provide- encourage the older children to continue their education after primary school. At the start of the secondary school children are most at risk. In Nicaragua only primary school is compulsory by the government. This means that most children enter secondary school, but that -especially in rural areas- they drop out often because their parents need them to work at home or on the land. Or the young girls fall in love and further learning is suddenly not important any more. They get pregnant and believe in a future with the family. Unfortunately, the reality in Nicaragua is often a different one.

Role model
Therefore it is important to have role models in the community of Las Lagunas. Meyling is a good example. Meyling was born and raised in Las Lagunas and she is now studying at the University in Managua (UCA). She receives a 100% scholarship from the government because she had excellent results in primary school. However, because she lives in the countryside, transport is difficult (a forty minutes walk + a one hour bus) and too expensive for her family to pay. Hotel con Corazón now pays these costs. In exchange, Meyling works two Sundays in the hotel. And during her holidays she often helps with the tutoring classes. A role model at her best!

The education team in Granada and the board in the Netherlands have regular discussion on these topics. How do we measure the impact of our activities? How can we reduce dropouts in secondary education? How can we create more role models for the two communities?

Development is not easy and sustainable development cooperation is even harder. That explains these reveries. It’s hard work and it is slow. But we have happy guests and above all students, young people with a future ahead, who know a little better how they can improve their lives.

In 2011 Hotel con Corazón washed 9,000 sheets, cooked 5,000 staff meals, made 1,200 home visits and the reading speed of our kids more than doubled.

2011 was another great year for Hotel con Corazón. The hotel has started to become more widely know, resulting in an occupancy rate of 58%. Our Dutch management couple and the local staff formed a good team, resulting in excellent service and happy guests.

The hotel operation made a net profit of almost $40.000 of which 37.000 was invested in various Corazón education activities. In total we provided education support to 126 children; creating 126 chances for a better future!

Would you like to read more about our efforts and results in 2011?

Download the Hotel con Corazón Annual Report 2011.

One of the founders of our hotel, Marcel Zuidhof, was back in Granada for a week. He shares his experience of revisiting ‘his’ hotel after two years!

“After not having been in the hotel for almost two years I went last august for a visit of one week. And boy, did it feel like ‘coming home’..!

The hotel hasn’t changed a bit… Well actually, it did. We have so many more guests now, enjoying our hotel. It’s full very often, but it never feels busy. The word of mouth (and word of online) has been enormously beneficial to Hotel con Corazón. So many of our content guests share their experience and attract more guests. As a consequence, I could only stay one night in the hotel, as it was fully booked on my second day of arrival!

It only took me a couple of minutes to find out why: our team con corazón still breathes this ‘family-like’ spirit, they love to make our guests feel at home, and have learned how to help (and deal with) the changing management every 18 months. Joost en Geertje have perfectly blended in in this team. The best sign was that the staff did not ask me a single question, they always approached Joost or Geertje.

Physically the hotel is in excellent shape. Almost as we left it, or as I remember it from my last visit. The crystal clear pool, the gardens greener than I remembered, the breakfast the same quality as ever, and the furniture completely intact. What a great job our carpenter did four years ago, and how well the team is maintaining all the woodwork.

All in all, it really felt like coming home again, like taking a step back in time and living in Granada again. I can recommend anybody that has been in Nicaragua or even in the hotel in the past to go and revisit, enjoy the pool and the hammock, but above all enjoy the team taking care of you so well.”

Marcel Zuidhof

September and October are the low-season months in Nicaraguan tourism. Which gives you a great opportunity to visit this beautiful country at low costs! Why not choose our Hotel con Corazón as your base to explore Granada and surroundings? We have a special discount for you these months. We offer the same excellent service, the same great beds, the same refreshing swimming pool, the same delicious breakfast – but at a lower rate! Discount rates start at 52 USD, and are valid till October 31. Check out our low season rates here.

Last month we officially launched our newest brand Corazón Trips, the new name for the in-house tour agency of Hotel con Corazón. Corazón Trips offers a broad variety of tours to discover the city and its friendly inhabitants.

Since we welcomed our very first visitor in the hotel in 2008, we have always supported our guests to organize their stay. Soon after we opened, Tree House Travels, a local experience tour operator started operating from our hotel lobby. In 2011 we decided to incorporate the tour agency in our own operations and just this last month, we gave it a new name: CORAZÓN TRIPS.

The trips are organized and led by Franklin, our bilingual (Spanish/English) guide. He knows all about Nicaraguan culture, the people and the environment of Granada and gets raving reviews from our Trips participants. A guest wrote on TripAdvisor: “For a super guide, ask for Frank. He is a charming young man who makes the outings even more fun — gave our youngest child a shoulder ride during a steep walk uphill, gently caught butterflies by hand to show our kids (then released them) and was all-around excellent.”

Three types of tours

• Classic Trips, for example to Mombacho or the Isletas
• Sporty Trips, like cycling around town or catching your own fish for lunch
• Experience trips, including cooking a Nicaraguan meal or making your own piñata

Like for the hotel, 100% of the profits are invested in education.

Read more about Corazón Trips