Projects

CoCoDA and ADES inaugurate Student House Iván Villasboa
08 Aug
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CoCoDA Inaugurates a Student House for Young People from Rural Communities

After two and a half years, CoCoDA Executive Director Jim Mulholland, CoCoDA board members Iván Villasboa, Deborah Payne and Genevieve Ryann as well as Indiana University representative Jennifer Custer returned to El Salvador to reconnect with partners, visit recent projects and inaugurate two of our greatest collaborations during the pandemic.Casa Iván VillasboaOn Thursday, June 9th, our longtime partner ADES and CoCoDA inaugurated the scholarship program resident dormitory and renamed the building “Casa Iván Villasboa” in honor of the years of...

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Solar System to pump water - ACRASAME ZP
06 Jul
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CoCoDA Inaugurates a Solar System to provide water to over 600 families

ACRAZAME-ZPOn Saturday, June 11th, longtime partner CRC, the ACRASAME Water Board, and CoCoDA inaugurated the recently retrofitted solar-powered water system for ten rural communities west of Suchitoto.  This system, hosted in Sitio Zapotal, provides water to over 600 families and over 2,000 people.  It is the largest solar-powered water system collaboration in CoCoDA history with 96 solar panels in operation.During the ceremony, Edgardo Molina of CRC, Félix Ángela Pineda of the Acrasame Water Board, and Jim Mulholland of CoCoDA spoke...

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27 Apr
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Internship Opportunity with CoCoDA

The CoCoDA Internship program is designed to allow Salvadorians and Nicaraguans the opportunity to work side by side with CoCoDA employees in the areas of communications, social media, graphic design, public health, and delegation facilitation, project management while improving English language proficiency.While CoCoDA is open to applications from all students for possible internships, we will give preference to those in the following degree programs: Communications, English, Engineering, Graphic Design, Business Administration, Public Relations, Public Health, Medicine, and Social Work.CoCoDA is...

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20 Mar
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Rotary Tour to El Salvador, June 9-14, 2022

COME SEE WHAT ROTARIANS HAVE ACCOMPLISHEDIn 2021, Rotarians across the US and Canada have contributed over $31,000 to the construction of solar-powered water systems in Central America in collaboration with CoCoDA.  The first of these projects is complete.  $3,500 of these funds came from Ohio Rotary clubs.Ohio Rotarians are invited to celebrate the inauguration of the Acrasame Solar Powered Water Project in La Mora, El Salvador.  This tour will be from Thursday, June 9th through Tuesday, June 14th, 2022.   The...

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21 Dec
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Making Central American Dreams Come True

In the past, we’ve often emphasized how your Christmas donation to CoCoDA would help us purchase so many bricks, books, medicines, solar panels, and other tangible items.  While these are important, those objects are always connected to real people. This year, we’re asking you to donate to people and their dreams!Rosa Murillo is better known as Morena. She has been a nurse since the civil war in El Salvador. Since then, she worked as a nurse for her community, paid and unpaid.A donation...

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Bringing Water through Solar Panels in Central America
09 Dec
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Bringing Water to Central Americans

In 2003, in response to the dreams of our partner communities in Central America, CoCoDA began planning and fundraising for our first water system in El Zapote, El Salvador.  This rather simple project took two years to complete.  We had a lot to learn.  Mr. Alan Winslow was key in championing this project with Rotarians in Evansville and Vincennes, Indiana, who helped raise about $10,000 for this pilot program.The First Solar Power Water System in El SalvadorCoCoDA and community...

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09 Nov
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The Faces Behind CoCoDA

Over the years, CoCoDA has fulfilled its mission thanks to many people – staff, Board members, volunteers, donors, champions and our many partners in Central America.  These are people committed to our work, empathetic to the needs of those with less privilege or resource. North Americans and Central Americans have worked side by side, managing projects and creating programs for the benefit of the communities because, like CoCoDA, they have commited to improving the quality of life for those in Central America and creating connections between...

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Continuing Education Program
02 Oct
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CoCoDA Adjusts to the Pandemic

The pandemic has changed life for all of us – in the United States and in Central America.  One of the chief challenges for CoCoDA has been how to continue to meet our mission of connecting North Americans and Central Americans. We had to cancel all delegations during 2020 and 2021. With the Delta variant hitting Central America this month, we cancelled the delegations planned for January and February of 2022.  These challenges have forced us to be creative in continuing to...

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Suchitoto Midwives Association work alongside IU students of Medicine in communities of El Salvador
09 Sep
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Suchitoto Midwives Association – Guardians of Life at the service of the community

According to the United Nations “Midwives are the backbone of maternal health systems, as they perform tasks that go far beyond attending deliveries, they provide support to women in their most vulnerable moments and day after day, they defend the human right of women to have safe pregnancy and delivery”.Since 2014, CoCoDA has worked alongside the Suchitoto Midwives Association through the ENLACE Global Health program that brings students from the Indiana University School of Medicine to work alongside midwives providing...

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Sun and Water Conference 2021
15 May
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2021 Sun and Water Conference Brings North and Central Americans Together

In October of 2017, CoCoDA held its first Sun and Water Conference in Suchitoto, El Salvador.  That conference leveraged nearly $180,000 for four small, rural solar powered water projects serving about 1500 people in Central America.  Based on the success of that initiative, CoCoDA had planned another conference in October of 2020.  Of course, we hadn’t planned on a pandemic.That didn’t stop us.On April, CoCoDA held its second Sun and Water Conference virtually.  We had over 70 participants from North...

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