Chico had quit high school after the first year, he said, and was “just wandering through the barrio with nothing to do” when a young woman told him about a program called Youth Builders, funded in part by Catholic Relief Services.

“I wanted to change,” he said. “I had a lot of formation because I was arrogant and angry. I needed to learn to control my temper.”

The program taught him skills — those he could use to work and those he could use to change his attitude.

“The youth program is a top priority,” said Hugh Aprile, Nicaragua's country director for the U.S. bishops' Catholic Relief Services, which helps fund the program. Aprile said 80 more young people will go through the program over the next year.

Rina Campos, who oversees youth programming for Youth Builders in Nicaragua, said the program targets poor, at-risk young people and tries to “increase their standard of living” and “improve the connection among youth, their families and their communities.” The organization does this through vocational training, community service and enterprise development.

One young woman, identified as Maria, said she joined the program because she wanted to work in construction, but with “macho” attitudes, people didn’t want to let her try because she was a girl.

While she said her dream would be to play on the World Cup soccer team, she is happy finishing her studies and working construction with members of her neighbourhood team.

The group completed a number of construction projects, but one in particular stands out. Because people in the neighbourhood are afraid, they wanted a larger police presence, so the students in the program built a police substation in the barrio. Students are proud of their work and people feel safer.

One of the construction students, Fidencio Calero, said it is hard to live in the barrio and find work outside of the neighbourhood. He said when a person from the neighbourhood interviews for a job, employers will not hire him or her when they find out the applicant is from Jorge Dimitrov.

“I’m living my dream,” he said, because he has formed a construction partnership with another young man in the program, and they build houses.

When he was younger, he said, he worked construction with his father. “I made a mistake, and he said ‘you’re not good for anything.’ I started to cry and told him I would be better than he is someday. Now, sometimes, my dad works for me. I’m very proud of that because I showed him what I could do.”

The young people, most in their early 20s, have stayed close. Studying and working together has given them the opportunity to form their own community.

Campos said these youth are typical of those in the other countries where she has worked.

“Some don’t know their parents and they come from dysfunctional families,” she said.

The program has improved the barrio for everyone, Campos said. The youth have new skills; they have “eliminated a lot of the violence,” and they have reduced the delinquency rate, she said.

Aprile said for graduates, the program helps “with job placement and advice on small business management, as well as other support.”

Programs like these are important, but it is hard to get funding for them, Campos said. To keep the young people involved, they funded the bridge program, but that money will run out soon.

“We have committed private CRS funds to this program through September 2012,” Aprile said. “And by then we hope to have also won external grants and (to) grow the current program from about 80 students per year to at least 350 per year, and hopefully more.”