Give A Child Life

Just Returned from El Salvador.

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to El Salvador. Here are a few updates:

1. The flooding did not leave hugely visible scars, but it did wipe out the crops, particularly the corn and beans. Many of the families at the Center have small plots a few miles away where they grow food to supplement what they can buy. This food was destroyed. Hunger will be a problem until they can grow new crops. Right now, they are worried about getting the funds to buy more seeds.

I became concerned after seeing some of the children. One girl in particular had lost a lot of weight. She had amoebic dysentery.  The flooding created additional water contamination because of the run-off. I asked Carlos to set up a five week program giving a healthy lunch with meat to the 12 sickest and hungriest children while the Center closed for the holidays.  

2. Water in general continues to be a serious concern. The government has started putting in a system in a nearby neighborhood; El Zaite is next on the list. But we can only believe it will happen once it starts. Carlos and I decided to buy 13 water filters sold by Cortaid, a nonprofit organization in El Salvador. We'll give 10 to the families with the children suffering most often from dysentery/diarrhea and put 3 in the Center: 1 in each classroom and 1 in the kitchen. When the children arrive at the Center in the morning, they'll dump the water they bring into the filters and in an hour or so, they'll have clean water to drink. This will help them get used to water filtration. We plan to track whether the children’s health improves.

3. The 900 books we distributed last spring made a huge difference. For the first time, all of the children graduating from the Center are entering kindergarten already reading. Parents described how the books "opened up their children's imaginations". I found the books in the families' homes, usually on low shelves where children could reach them easily. They clearly were much used. On this trip, I brought three huge suitcases filled with books for children starting at the Center in January.

4. The Center is doing an excellent job tracking the children's progress. While there, I picked up the post-development assessments done at the end of the year. I also collected post surveys from parents and older children who received books last spring.

Overall our program seems to be doing very well, and we identified other areas for expansion in the next year. More to news to come soon.

Warmly,

Debbie

 

Brief Update.

Just a brief update to let you know that we're revising the website--expect some changes in the next few weeks. In El Salvador, the children are preparing for end of the year testing and the culmination of the reading program. I'll be heading down there in early November to take new book backpacks and see how things are going. In Kenya, we're starting an infant feeding program and almost doubling the number of children sent to child care. Needs are growing, as food prices skyrocket and work for mothers becomes harder and harder to find.

Finally, here's a quote from Victor Frankl, the Nazi prison camp survivor. In Man's Search for Meaning, he wrote: "The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system." 

Have a good week.

Debbie

Bundles of Books for El Salvador!

Just got back from El Salvador, where we handed out almost 900 books to children at the El Zaite Center that GCL supports. It was a glorious day---passing out backpacks to children who had never owned books before. Before GCL arrived, even finding a book to read in the classroom was difficult. Over the past few years, I've scoured used book stores in San Salvador looking for children's books in Spanish. I managed to buy a few...but last Friday exceeded all my expectations. Bundles of Books, a nonprofit organization in the U.S., shipped 11 boxes of books, backpacks and school supplies to El Zaite. Every child received 5 or more books to take home and keep. It was a wonderfully heartwarming experience. Thank you, Bundles of Books!

Debbie 

 

Bundles of Books for the Children at El Zaite!

Children at the El Zaite Center are about to receive more books than they’ve ever seen—more than they’ve ever imagined. Thirteen boxes filled with almost 900 Spanish children’s books, encyclopedias and other reference books will arrive in El Salvador in the next few weeks.

Contributed by one of GCL’s partners, the nonprofit organization Bundles of Books, some of the titles include Too Many Tamales, Is Your Mama a Llama?, A Pocket Full of Kisses and Goodnight Moon.

The books will stay in the boxes until I arrive in a few weeks. Then we'll unpack them and hand each child a backpack with books and school supplies. You can look forward to the pictures.

Thanks so much, Bundles of Books!

The Best Way to Survive is for All of Us to Work Together.

In his book, The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society, author Frans De Waal describes example after example of animals helping each other. He goes to great lengths to document incidents where one animal reached out to another without any obvious intention of personal gain. In his last chapter, De Waal puts this in perspective and links it to human society. After describing greed as a driving force, he writes, "The feeling that one human being cannot be indifferent to another if we wish to build a community true to the meaning of the word is the other force that underlies our dealings with one another....Every individual is connected to something larger than itself...The connection is deeply felt and no society can do without it."

Our instinct to help each other is innate. At a profound level, we understand that none of us is here alone...and that the best way to survive is for all of us to work together and help each other.

 

Own your slippers.

In the hugely popular book, Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese tells this vignette:

 

"The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents that you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."

Isabel's Twin Boys.

Outside the house of Isabel Bilma her twin boys play in the dirt. They hang close to the door and run inside when they see us coming up the steep hill. Isabel has three children total, the two five-year-old boys and an eight-year-old girl. The boys attend the El Zaite Child Care Center.

Their father works and their mother takes care of the children. They are often hungry, but with three small children, Isabel can't take a job.  However, if the Center was open longer hours, perhaps she could work.

The family has a water tap, but it rarely works. Most often, the children use water from their well. The water is very dirty, and sometimes when the bucket comes up, there is trash in it. The family buys water for the children to drink. It's expensive and buying water means they have less money for food.

Both boys have suffered from parasites. After treatment at the clinic, they are better. But they have to be careful.

The family has no books or toys. A small stuffed animal we gave them yesterday hangs from one of the wires in the yard. It looks trapped, or lost.  

Care Now. 

Update from El Zaite Children's Center.

A few days ago, I returned from visiting the El Zaite Children's Center in El Salvador. As usual, the trip was intense. During it, Emma Olson and I met twice with the Santa Tecla Rotary Club, which is interested in helping to install a water system and expand the classrooms. No decisions have been made, but we are hopeful. Once again, I met with a group of mothers from the community. The lack of water at the Center continues to be a prime concern. Because the community in general lacks clean water, the children frequently suffer from diarrhea and some have severe amoebas and parasites. Food prices have tripled since the rains began--a bag of beans that used to cost 50 cents now is $1.50. The mothers are compensating by buying smaller quantities and fewer items. Over and over, people thanked me for the books that we're providing to the children. I've sent some boxes from the States and during the last trip, I bought whatever Spanish language children's books I could find in the used book stores in San Salvador.

There is a lot of work ahead...but the direction is becoming clear.

Debbie 

 

3 Boxes of Children's Books!

Last week Give A Child Life packed up and shipped three boxes of children’s books to El Salvador. We’d discovered a one dollar book store with a treasure trove of books in Spanish. I’m not sure exactly what all the books were about. But I do know how hard it is to find children’s books in that country. When visiting last spring, I went to five or six of the large used booksellers in the capital city. Most had only one or two children’s books---all from Disney and costing $10-$12 each. 

I found the same situation in Kenya a month later. Children in slums just don’t have access to books. Yes, the conditions are filthy and books probably wouldn’t last long. But can you imagine never having anything to read? 

Debbie

 

We found lots of used toys, but not books. 

 

 

While I was in El Salvador last week...

While I was in El Salvador last week, I spent two days with the teachers at the El Zaite Center supported by GCL. One of the most surprising moments came when I asked what the children were like when they first arrived at the school. The teachers—Sandra and Martita---told me that many of the boys and girls know nothing. 

 

 

Of 20 new students, maybe three will know their colors. They don’t recognize forms or shapes. They don’t know how to color. Many don’t know how to grab a pencil. They don’t understand instructions. Very few of the children have received any training at home. 

On the first day of class, many cry. Some will cry for two weeks. It is hard for them to learn to be in an environment away from home. During the second week, Sandra starts giving them simple instructions. They begin coloring and doing things. She shows them how to hold a pencil. The teachers at this point use a lot of singing in their instruction.

 

 

Martita said, “Some parents don’t talk to their kids. The children have a very limited vocabulary. They don’t like to talk. But they can sing.”

Before long, the children are very excited and they discover the thrill of learning.