From 1995 to 1998, Earth Links helped to send a group of volunteer occupational therapists to Jinotepe, Nicaragua, to supervise the internships of occupational therapy assistant students in their final year at Pueblo Community College’s Occupational Therapy Assistant program. These interns worked with special education teachers and students in the Jinotepe area schools and at the Los Pipitos program in Jinotepe for three weeks. Volunteers Wanda Rosario, Mary Beth Aretz, and Lois Hickman provided their expertise in supervising the students.
In the course of their internships, the students saw and evaluated the special education students, helped adapt the school curriculum to the physical and learning disabilities the children had, and modified school equipment and wheelchairs sent to Jinotepe by Earth Links and Three Americas. Students brought with them to Nicaragua items the school would need, such as therapy balls and games for the children. Their supervisors, the volunteer occupational therapists, brought monetary donations for families who could not afford medications for their children.
In front: instructors Mary Beth Aretz, Lois Hickman, and Wanda Rosario, with Occupational Therapy Assistant Interns, 1998.