In 2000 INPRHU MADRIZ, created the rutal alternative education centers (CEAR) based on the philosophy of popular education and on the strategy of bringing alternative education to communities. The school enrollment and retention behavior within these centers was outlined in 30% women and 70% men (adults), which evidenced the exclusion and or self-exclusion of women and youth in these training opportunities. With the aim of improving participation with a focus on women and youth, an institutional strategy was implemented to influence projects, prioritizing the participation of young people, changing gaps or inequalities due to age and / or gender factors in the communities. In the last five years, young people and women have been protagonists and direct beneficiaries of projects focused on processes of integral formation, entrepreneurship, self-savings and loans groups, life skills and associativity. All these processes have been developed under the new model of skills-based training, which consists of linking the syllabus of the training courses with the scope of labor competencies; These courses are authorized and certified by the National Technological Institute  INATEC.

The Human Promotion Insititue – INPRHU Somoto is a Vocational Training Center, authorized by the National Technological Institute  since 2001. Since 2017 we are part of the agricultural sector table, consultation, consensus and reflection space between central INATEC and 8 centers of the forestry agricultural sector.

For the development of these courses and specialties, adequate infrastructure is available: Technology Center for the Dry Tropic CEAR TELPOCHCALLÍ (Regional Reference of Biointensive Production Systems), Food Processing Center CEAR TELPOCHCALLÍ, Production  and processing of bee products and basic grains “LAS LOMAS” Center. , ECOALBERGUE PALMIRA for the promotion of Community Rural Tourism. “MACHITIA” Rural Alternative Education Center. Center for Rural Alternative Education and ecological practices “EL CIPIAN”.

The methodologists, supervisors and facilitators of INPRHU SOMOTO, are in an intensive training process with the National Technological Institute  INATEC, which will be certified as technical specialists in technical education and professional training.

The thematic axes of the rural alternative education program are:

• TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING: Offer of specialties and training courses to young people from vulnerable rural communities. Currently, and in accordance with the executive agreement number 0465-2018 of INATEC, our center has the authorization to offer 14 Training Courses: Beekeeping, Formulation of Business Plans, Application of Drugs and Minor Surgery, Organic Fertilization, Artisan Fruit Processing and Vegetables, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Non-Traditional Crops, Sustainable Tourism with a Business approach, Manufacture of food for livestock and animal health, Beekeeping for farm diversification, Development of Small Rural Agricultural Agriculture, Development and artisanal transformation of Dairy Products, Artificial Insemination and Diagnosis of Gestation in Bovine Females, Community Social Promotion (All in the training mode enabling). In addition, it has the authorization of 5 Technical Specialties: Integrated and Ecological Management of Farms (elementary school required), Integrated and Ecological Management of Farms (Middle School required), Agroecology Technician with specialty in agricultural management (elementary school required), Agroecological Technician (Middle School required), Agroecological Technical Baccalaureate (Middle School required).
• DIGITAL EDUCATION: INPRHU SOMOTO, in partnership with the PROFUTURO Foundation, aims to promote equal opportunities through quality digital education as a key lever in reducing the social gap. its focus is the teacher, in community, the professional development of teachers is understood as the fundamental key to be able to influence and impact the learning process of their students from digital innovation. The Pro-Future Educational Solution is Comprehensive because it adequately combines technology, content and innovative learning methods to contribute to the transformation of education. Pro-Future and INPRHU offer teacher training through its contents in TIC and Innovation. The strategy used in the beneficiary schools is to carry out a blended intervention, which means face-to-face and virtual assistance to the educators enrolled in the Pro-Future online platform. Coaches use different digital tools to provide accompaniment and technical-pedagogical recommendations to educators for the proper use of technology with their students.
• YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Training through a course of entrepreneurship and business plans; with the aim of empowering young people and facilitating them an economic empowerment, until they become entrepreneurs and owners of their own micro businesses; guaranteeing the generation of family income. With this new training approach, the INPRHU SOMOTO, breaks the traditional schemes of training young people to apply for employment in public or private companies; we empower young people to promote self-employment and income generation.
• BUSINESS MODELS: To date, INPRHU SOMOTO has financed and accompanied more than 350 micro businesses led by rural youth; mainly in the areas of beekeeping, basic grains, cattle purchases and sales, bakery, commerce, poultry and pig farms, tour operators, crafts, tourist guides, dining rooms, coffee shops, carpentry, confectionary, vegetables and dairy products processing.
• ASSOCIATIVITY: From the youth target groups, we accompany the processes of community associativity, this exercise is the prelude for interested young people to become members of a multisectoral cooperative.
• COOPERATIVISM: Through the formation of new multisectoral cooperatives, we encourage and enhance the integration of young people into legally constituted entities and at the same time encourage them to strengthen the culture of equal conditions and the prevention of gender-based violence, motivating new members so that they influence the creation of a gender commission so they promote nonviolence, equality and the culture of peace as a transversal axis in their actions. The formation of cooperatives, greatly guarantees the sustainability of the actions developed with the target groups, promoting the autonomy and dynamics of the communities.
• RESCUE AND PROMOTION OF INDIGENOUS CULTURE: due to the presence of indigenous communities in the municipalities of Totogalpa, Telpaneca, San Lucas and Somoto; INPRHU SOMOTO, remains committed to the rescue, promotion and respect of each and every one of the elements of the indigenous Chorotega culture.
• COMMUNITY RURAL TOURISM: Based on the fact that the Madriz department has a range of tourism potentials, the INPRHU SOMOTO develops training courses on rural tourism with a business focus; motivating mainly young people to train and enable small tourist businesses.
• AUTO SAVINGS AND CREDIT: Self savings and loan groups (grupos de auto ahotto y credito, GAAP) are a type of community-based savings and credit association. The money is paid with interest by making the fund grow, these savings and loan activities occur within a predetermined duration of 8 to 12 months, at the end of which the funds are distributed to members in proportion to their total savings , members are free to use the total amount, distributed as they wish, including reinvestment for another cycle (Self-entrepreneurship). In addition, the GAAP, contribute to a secondary fund that attend to the emergencies of its members (Emergency Fund). The GAAP training process begins with meetings in the target communities, where an open call will be held, prioritizing the participation of the young members of the courses. Within these meetings, the GAAP promoters are selected in a participatory manner, they are trained and are responsible for following up on the GAAP. With the support of the promoter and technical team of INPRHU, each GAAP develops its own regulations.
• PSYCHOSOCIAL ATTENTION OF YOUNG PEOPLE: The young people served are part of the population element of the dry corridor of Nicaragua; population characterized by the high situation of economic vulnerability, high degrees of social and intra-family violence, high rates of migration, Given these problems, INPRHU SOMOTO promotes an institutional and community strategy aimed at the implementation of psychosocial care and support plans; promoting crisis management and the respective protection and self-care measures.

VOLUNTEERING: In the lasts years INPRHU SOMOTO in coordination with allied organizations has taken integral development to many communities, through national and international volunteering. In that sense we have shared with volunteers from Germany, Canada, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Costa Rica, England, Ireland. At the national level, year after year, we receive volunteers or interns from the Autonomous University of Nicaragua de León, Central American University, National Agrarian University, University of Northern Nicaragua, Martin Luther University, Popular University of Nicaragua, Che Guevara Polytechnic.

• PARTICIPATORY MONITORING: This new model is committed to monitoring, ie systematic and periodic observation and reflection; Become a powerful mechanism for management, innovation, learning of beneficiaries. Through the results of the measurements to the target group, accountability will be made for the changes reflected both at the individual and collective level that are achieved as we execute the projects; evidencing the change in the person and in the group. This model is based on two basic assumptions: Learning: The monitoring of the processes of change driven must not only fulfill a function of “accountability” but of learning of all involved, of the target groups, of the work teams. The participatory nature contains democratic elements that promote a “culture of learning” that people can assimilate. Self-efficacy or self-efficiency: Monitoring aims not only to measure scopes, but rather motivates and creates awareness in the same groups and individuals about their own ability to make changes. We work with 4 essential tools: Differential Welfare Analysis (ADIB), Individual Change (CI), Collective Change (CC), Analysis and Reflection on Changes (ARCO)