Condega Women Builders Association in Nicaragua
The Asociación Mujeres Constructoras de Condega en Nicaragua (the Condega Women Builders Association in Nicaragua) is a community-based feminist organisation founded in the late 1980s in the municipality of Condega, department of Estelí, Nicaragua. The organisation advocates for women’s rights, popular education, and collective memory. Its members founded the association as builders and carpenters, with a political commitment to economic autonomy and the defence of women’s rights against patriarchal, capitalist, and colonial forms of violence.
For over three decades, the Asociación Mujeres Constructoras de Condega have developed a comprehensive work that combines technical training, community organisation, and the defence of human rights with a focus on reproductive and sexual rights of women and young people. Through its Women’s Technical Training School and the Technological and Ecological Youth Centre, it has offered courses in construction, carpentry, electricity, solar energy and other trades. These courses offer a critical reflection on gender-based violence, imposed motherhood, and enforced heterosexuality. The organisation has promoted feminist youth spaces that have enabled many young women in rural areas to strengthen their autonomy, report violence, and participate actively in their communities.
The organisation’s work also focuses on defending the land through commemoration and initiatives supporting a collective historical memory to recover local knowledge, promote building with natural materials, and support the reconstruction of homes and community spaces, particularly in the wake of climate-related emergencies. In 1993 the organisation opened its main headquarters in Condega, a centre that became a landmark in the region as a source of technical and political training for women, as well as a safe space for feminist organisations and refuge. In addition, their work has involved documenting and denouncing structural inequality, abuse of power, and extractive industries that caused poverty in many communities.
In recent years, the organisation has been targeted by a state policy aimed at closing down civic space in Nicaragua. After years of threats and pressure, on 27 May 2022 its legal status was revoked by presidential decree, along with several other organisations that were critical of the government. In 2023, amidst a campaign of asset confiscation and the criminalisation of feminist and human rights organisations, their main headquarters were occupied and subsequently confiscated by the state. On 26 March 2026, the organisation reported that the government had opened a university campus in the facilities of the headquarter. The organisation considers this an attempt to erase the human rights work its members have carried out for decades. The authorities in Nicaragua have repeatedly used confiscated buildings and other assets of human rights organisations and converted them into educational facilities. This is a deliberate strategy to support a narrative that these measures are for educational purposes, but in reality these intentions silence critical voices and human rights defenders. Despite the illegal seizure of its headquarters, the members of Asociación Mujeres Constructoras de Condega remain active in grass roots initiatives, seeking to keep their legacy alive and continue the defence of human rights.
