Empowering Business

At the start of 2020, approximately 760 million people in the world lived on less than $2 a day, a number that is growing in light of COVID 19. For many breadwinners, especially women, gaining business expertise and securing a loan to start an enterprise is next to impossible in developing countries. In Nicaragua, the microbusiness and informal job sector accounts for 45% of the gross domestic product, highlighting the importance of support for these entrepreneurs.

Our Business Academy was founded in 2015 to serve businesses in Nicaragua. The Academy Vision is to improve the micro-economics of small and impoverished communities by teaching Bible-based business principles to small business owners with limited access to business knowledge and to create a self-sustaining program that uses the God-given skills of volunteer businesspeople to empower our local coaches, businesses and initiatives. A unique, self-sustaining BUILD model has been developed by the BlessBack Business Academy to establish this vision:

The BUILD model is deployed by employing local business coaches to provide frequent Coaching & Consulting to business clients, and to establish a community business network by hosting Monthly Business Meetings. Additionally, the coaches oversee the Business Academy’s Microloan program, which distributes small loans (avg.$600) to financially support the development and expansion of the local businesses.

Volunteer: The BlessBack Business Academy provides an opportunity for businesspeople to travel to Nicaragua to serve alongside our local coaches on short-term mission trips. Additionally, volunteers can serve by creating Business Workshop content, virtually mentoring a Business Coach, or adopting a business through funding a microloan.

To get involved with / donate your time or resources to the cause of BlessBack Business Academy, please Contact Us at BlessBack Business Academy.

Please watch the following short videos for more information about the Business Academy.

Enriching Education

Globally over 59 million children are unschooled, leaving them at risk for lifelong struggles with poverty and disease. Even among those enrolled, 250 million leave school lacking basic knowledge and critical thinking skills. Since the educational systems in developing countries are grossly underfunded, schooling is typically not free, and many impoverished parents simply cannot afford to pay tuition and fees while at the same time afford to feed their children. While some children are fortunate to attend school for a few years, most do not matriculate to secondary programs. Schools themselves do not make a passing grade. They fail miserably due to outdated instructional methods, poorly trained teachers and inadequate supplies and resources.

Bless Back Worldwide and our partners desire is to see each child in our communities move into adulthood equipped with knowledge and skills that help them lead productive, safe and fulfilling lives. We approach educational issues from two different angles, by focusing on the student and the teacher. For community children, both schooled and unschooled, we offer extra-curricular activities that target the gaps in their learning. Through our “Kids Camps”, volunteers provide opportunities to engage in problem solving, fine motor activities, critical thinking games, creative expression and the arts. We also work to address the deficiencies found in the educational systems. Many teachers lack formal training in instructional techniques and instead rely on obsolete, rote methods of learning. Our teams go into the classrooms, modeling more effective strategies that develop important higher-level thinking skills. We have launched a professional development program where teachers from K-12 undergo weeklong training seminars to infuse them with new ideas, develop better practices and provide them with a more comprehensive set of teaching resources.