Twinning between national universities

From this Monday, November 30, honorable members of the National Council of Universities (UNC) began a tour of the Las Minas compound, then moved to the city of Bilwi, and on Tuesday, they held a harmonious meeting with the authorities of URACCAN, being greeted by the excellent rector Dr. Alta Hooker Blandford, who gave them the warmest welcome to this house of intercultural higher education.

Hooker recalled all the odyssey that had to happen in order to reach the city of Bilwi after Hurricane Iota passed; subsequently, meetings with the college community were pretty devastating, "it was sad to see people, see them in the eye, and listen to what they were saying (...); it was a rather dramatic but very necessary situation and we also said that crying helps to find oneseed, to take out what one has inside, then we said, we will cry, but also, we will stop crying and we will work."

In addition, the rector of URACCAN expressed gratitude to the rectors and rectors members of the UNC for being aware of the situation of the university and the costña population, as they have not only supported morally and fraternally, but also economically and emotionally, sending a commission of specialists in Psychology and Psychiatry to serve the entire university community of the Bilwi campus.

"When we see the destructions, it is a territory that we will repair it, we have the energy, we have the will, and we will lift this up; we said, 'Let's not let a hurricane destroy URACCAN, it can't be possible,'" Hooker emphasized.

Accompaniment in the persistence of URACCAN

For her part, the teacher Ramona Rodríguez Pérez, president of the UNC, stated that despite the circumstances that have caused pain and suffering in Caribbean families, this has been an opportunity to accompany the educational community of URACCAN, in addition to continuing to learn, "we are sure that all the brigadiers who have already returned and are going to return , they will come changed, with another vision, with another conception of what populations are, of who we are the Nicaraguans, of that interculturality," he said.

Rodríguez also emphasized that the visit by the two Caribbean universities is for the purpose of providing them with solidarity, support and accompaniment by all the universities of the country. "We are not a club of friends in the University Council, at unCN we are universities that are working together for that training of the professionals that Nicaragua needs, but also, accompany us in these difficult times," she said.

For his part, Fray Carlos Irías, rector of UNIAV-Rivas, assured that on some occasions what unies us is 'pain', "and we discover the emergence of love, (...); I am very fond of URACCAN, Alta, Yuri, Dr Cordón, who have been very gentle (...), sometimes life hurts us, sometimes it gives us some good scrambles, but for me what URACCAN does for the UNC makes a lot of sense, our presence here also wants to reaffirm that, the recognition we make, the meaning of URACCAN's existence."

Finally, the rector thanked each UNC member for their visit, and urged them to continue working on strengthening the Autonomous Regions, providing a higher education service with quality and relevance to the peoples of the Caribbean Coast.