Just ask any mom or dad of kids in our child sponsorship program what is the best hope of their child overcoming poverty, and the answer you're likely to get is, "Education."
Education really is a powerful tool for children living in poverty. Sponsoring a child is not just about giving material aid such as food and clothing; it's about opening the door to a better future. Through education, our sponsors help open the door to success for their sponsored children.
As Children International continues our relief efforts in the Philippines, we are keeping our eyes and ears open for new reports on the forecasted super-typhoon Parma. This new typhoon is expected to make landfall on Saturday hitting areas farther north than Typhoon Ketsana which severely affected our sponsored populations in Manila and Quezon City.
We will continue to provide updates as we hear from our staff in the Philippines. For the latest please visit www.children.org.
I thought I might contribute some information about the Philippine flood disaster. Today, after evaluating excellent assessment reports from our two agencies in Metro Manila, we have made the decision to send over $500,000 in cash and $1.6 million in badly needed supplies to provide further emergency relief and to help people begin to rebuild their lives.
This is a significant contribution that addresses similarly significant destruction caused by the flooding. Our sponsored families are disproportionately affected because they are forced to live in very marginal locations and situations. Areas that are often prone to flooding with homes not built to withstand the force of floodwaters.
I should also add how proud I/we are of the amazing efforts our staffs there have made. Within three days, under the most difficult of circumstances, they have accounted for all the sponsored children! In addition, they were there almost immediately passing out emergency supplies. One staff member reported a flood victim saying how reassuring it was to see familiar staff there with emergency supplies!
Thanks to all of you who continue to hold the people of the Philippines in your thoughts and prayers.
No doubt you’ve followed the situation in the news. To say matters are grim would be an understatement. Our child sponsorship agency staff in the Manila area continues to work tirelessly to track down sponsored children and their families at different shelters to verify their wellbeing and ensure their basic needs are met.
As we receive news from the field, we’ll be updating it on our website, www.children.org. Please continue to click the “Emergency Alert” button on our homepage as your first source for the latest information from our staff at ground zero.
I’m sure you’re aware at this point of the tragic events surrounding the typhoon-induced flooding in the Philippines. Our staff in the Manila area are scrambling to assess the situation.
What we do know is that the damages are staggering. Thousands of families have been displaced; the last information we received indicated the death toll from the flooding was at least 140 people…and we can only imagine more sad news will come in once rescuers are able to reach remote areas.
We appreciate all of you who are thinking of and praying for all the children and families, sponsored or not, in the Philippines. It’s very difficult to communicate with the field under these circumstances, and our staff there has its hands full dealing with the emergency. Nevertheless, they are doing a very good job of contacting us as often as possible with updates.
Whenever we do receive substantial updates, we’ll be posting the information to our main website, www.children.org. Please visit the homepage frequently and click on the “Emergency Alert” button to learn the latest news.
Thanks again. It’s because of people like you that we’re able to be there to respond to tragedies like this one.
"My sponsor makes me happy because my mom cannot buy shoes for me, and my sponsor gives me shoes for school. It is nice to write to my sponsor because it's like having a friend, and I like to have friends.
I would like to tell my sponsor I enjoy playing at the park in the slides. If I could, I would like to take my sponsor to play together in the slides, and I would give her a big smile. That is how I would show her how happy I am for the help I get."
Sarahi (right) with her sister Wendy.
Photo and reporting assistance by Cecilia Carrión, Communications Coordinator for Children International in Quito, Ecuador.
After Soledad’s parents traded her to a man twice her age for a bottle of moonshine, she never imagined she’d find a way to escape her misery. Then, years later, in a desperate attempt to help her kids, she discovered Children International…
Taking matters in her own hands, Soledad enrolled three of her children in Children International’s sponsorship program: 6-year-old Maritza,* 4-year-old José,* and 9-year-old Ana.* Through sponsorship, her children receive school supplies and uniforms, material support and health care.
Ana* is perhaps the luckiest. Children International covered the costs to repair a heart defect she’d had since birth. (Staff members at our Quito agency even donated blood to her when they learned there was a shortage at the local hospital.) Help like that, Soledad admits, gives her reason to believe in a better future.
“I haven’t been able to do much in my own life,” she says, “but I’m working hard so my kids can at least achieve reasonable careers – maybe not something extraordinary, but something where they can have a good life.”
She’s helping her two oldest daughters, María,* 14, and Nadia,* 12, study to be seamstresses at a school near the airport, and she hopes she’ll soon be able to make a down payment on a sewing machine so they can perfect their trade and get good jobs.
Now when Soledad looks out into the distance, she no longer sees her life disappearing before her eyes. With the support of sponsorship, she sees opportunities for her children, and that’s enough to fill her heart with hope.
*Names have been changed to protect the indentities of those mentioned.
Damon Guinn is a senior staff writer with Children International.
Every day glimmering jets fly past 31-year-old Soledad’s* home on a steep hillside in Quito, Ecuador. Soledad watches wistfully as the planes take flight and sail into the distance, all the while wishing that she, too, could fly away and forever flee her grim circumstances.
From her lofty vantage point, you’d think Soledad was on top of the world – but the truth is, she’s near the lowest point in her life. And she finds it hard to rise above her station.
At the tender age of 13, Soledad’s parents traded her for a bottle of moonshine. The man who acquired her – a man twice her age who calls himself her husband – has threatened to kill her if she ever leaves. He not only robbed her of her value as a human being, he immediately impregnated her, and continued to do so until the prospects of leaving were too costly to consider.
But Soledad does dream about leaving and taking her six children with her. If only she had the means. Very few landlords will rent to a single mother with more than two children, she says. So she does what any good mother would do. “I make myself struggle for the sake of the kids,” she confides.
While her husband is off getting drunk, Soledad works long hours as a maid to pay for her family’s food, utilities and $70 monthly rent. She manages to scrape together about $110 each month, but that barely covers the needs of eight people.
Still, she fights on, going so far as to challenge her husband about his lack of support. “I said if you’re the father, then help them go to school. And he said, ‘Well, they’ll go if they want, or if they won’t, they won’t.’ I’m not going to stand for that! They’re going to have school one way or another.”
*Names have been changed to protect the indentities of those mentioned.
Damon Guinn is a senior staff writer with Children International. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of Damon's post.
Marelvis Campo, Communications Coordinator for our child sponsorship agency in Cartagena, Colombia, has been part of the CI team for the past eight years.
Marelvis holds a degree in Journalism and Social Communication. Prior to joining Children International, she worked in radio and television in local and regional markets within Colombia. She began working for CI as an intern, but very soon, says Marelvis, “I realized this was where I needed to be; I needed to apply everything I had learned to the organization to show people the work Children International does to help the poorest and neediest children of the city.”
Children International’s Communications Coordinators (CCs) are the field correspondents who report on the stories and news items that later appear in our print and Web publications. According to Marelvis, a typical day for a CC might include visiting community centers, where they are joined by community volunteers prior to launching out into the community to visit children’s homes for photos and interviews. They walk through the neighborhoods seeking information, taking pictures, chatting with people and interviewing children and their families to gain a better understanding of how the program is impacting their lives. Then, at the end of the day, they travel back to the office and begin to compile the information they obtained to be transmitted to our writers in Kansas City.
When asked about her favorite memories of her job, Marelvis immediately speaks of working with a young girl with osteogenesis imperfecta, or Brittle Bone Disease. “In spite of her disabilities, she was able to finish grade school, and she’s close to graduating from high school,” she recalls. “When I learned of her story, I interviewed her and she told me she dreamed of having a computer so she could do her homework. I shared her wish with a friend who works for a local newspaper. Stirred by this girl’s efforts and by her mother’s great love for her, my friend wrote a special Mother’s Day feature about the girl’s mother. As a result, a kind reader donated a computer for the girl so her wish could come true.
“One very special moment for me,” reflects Marelvis, “was when I realized that even small efforts mean a great deal to the people for whom we work.”
Pinched cheeks. A painfully thin body. No way to correlate her size with her age. A disposition that could swing from heartbreaking eagerness to disconsolate sobbing in a split second.
Hunger has a name. It's Tania, and I saw her the other day in Ecuador.
On the rare occasions her alcoholic father shows up at home, the family cowers in fear. Mom is sick; she considers her own life to be beyond help, and she desperately hopes for something better for her children. Some days they don't eat at all.
You've probably already received a letter from our president, Jim Cook, explaining to you about our Lifeline Food Appeal.
For the sake of many children like Tania, please read it.
Note: If for some reason you didn't receive Jim's letter and you'd like to help feed a child like Tania, please visit our website. Thanks.
Tomorrow, September 17th is Special Hug Day. Sure, it may not mean much to you unless you’re familiar with Children International’s child sponsorship program. But let me assure you that this holiday is very meaningful to our sponsored children. In fact, it’s downright, well...special.
We didn’t come up with this holiday to sell cards or cheesy decorations or to make people feel compelled to commemorate the day with frivolous gifts. Perhaps the name Special Hug sounds silly, but the items the children and their families receive are nothing but practical.
Even making the bed is fun when you’ve got new clean sheets. “The bedspread is beautiful, and I like the color,” says Angie from Barranquilla, Colombia.
View our Special Hug slideshow to see gifts from past years and read what children living in poverty say about this special day.
Photo by Patricia Calderón, Communications Coordinator in Barranquilla, Colombia.
On September 16th, Mexico will celebrate its Independence Day...a day remembered in Mexico as "El Grito" (The Battle Cry) because the indigenous people rose up to secure autonomous rule.
But sponsored youth in Mexico have another kind of independence to celebrate as well: an exciting victory in their struggle to overcome poverty.
Recently, a group of teens in Mexico sponsored through Children International received the first HOPE scholarship ever. The endowment ceremony was a happy event where 30 young people including Ana Fajardo, who was one of the youth delegates attending the United Nations Youth Assembly, received a scholarship to help them pay for tuition, school supplies, and books. The scholarship recipients may use the funds to pay for vocational training or university fees.
I was fortunate enough to get to know Ana in New York last month. She is a funny yet driven young lady who upon meeting me presented me with a business card and resume on matching floral stationery.
With the help of the HOPE scholarship, I am sure Ana will become the self-reliant adult she is driven to be.
Blog by Dolores Quinn Kitchin. Photo by Alejandro Bonilla from our child sponsorship agency in Jalisco, Mexico.
Today we remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones of those who were lost, and to our troops who are far from home in defense of our freedom.
One morning when I left the house, I saw lots of people in the streets with machetes, nets and hatchets. Employees of the municipality were cutting down the very trees which gave my community its name: La Alameda (The poplar grove).
Hundreds of trees where knocked down because, according to the authorities, they were diseased, they were a risk to the homes in the sector since they were hundreds of years old, and they were infected with termites and weevils.
But even so, it hurt me to watch them fall. It was almost like watching a massacre because the trees couldn’t defend themselves. First they cut them with electric saws, then they pushed them or pulled them with trucks or oxen. Once the trees had fallen to the ground, people with machetes cut off the branches like a lynching. Leaves everywhere, branches, woodchips, birds’ nests with eggs – it was all so sad to see. There is a saying that goes “From a fallen tree, make firewood.” And I felt sad, as if they had ripped something away from me too.
My ecological consciousness began not long ago, when Children International’s Youth Program began a campaign to plant fruit trees. Last year several children planted lemon, apple and orange trees around their homes. I know that it’s not a lot, but it’s a little breath of fresh air for nature that we’re planning on doing again this year.
I’d like to share the message that we need to take care of nature and take care of the trees that are left thanks to the many neighbors who opposed it and protested. I am part of a Youth Group that is ecologically conscientious thanks to the environmental education we have received. And because of that education, we are committed to fighting so that this destruction doesn’t happen again in our lush green Guatemala.
Photos and story by Edwin Mazate, sponsored youth and youth reporter for Children International in Chimaltenango, Rural Guatemala. To see more sponsored Guatemalan youth in ecological action, watch our video "Every Day is Earth Day".
My favorite Bloggers, Sarah and Kelly, have gently reminded me that it’s time for my first-of-the-month blog contribution. I knew that. They also suggested that, since it’s Labor Day weekend, I might want to weave that into my entry.
And so it shall be. Gladly.
As I’ve been thinking about this it’s pretty obvious that labor is one of the dominant themes in the lives of our sponsored children and their families.
Those families have at least some kind of chance when Dad and/or Mom is able to find work. Often when I’m visiting the families of the sponsored children, I ask the mothers (the dads are often out working!) what kind of work the husbands do and how much they earn.
As often as not, the answer to what they do is “day laborer,” often some type of job in construction. The answer to “how much does he earn in a month?” is often a dollar amount ranging from not very darn much to just a little more than that. And that answer is invariably, quickly, followed with, “When there is work.” And the dads I’ve met, the few times they’re home and not working or looking for work, don’t expect a handout. They want to work and are happy to find work when it is available.
As far as Mom’s work…if she doesn’t have a “real” job such as doing housekeeping for another family, taking in laundry or doing some type of “cottage industry” such as making anything from hot pads to tortillas, then she is, I guess, what might be called a stay-at-home-mom…except when she stays at home, she works harder than I’d care to…and she does it every day, seven days a week. Her “stay at home” job likely includes cooking not enough food over a wood stove, burning wood that she may have cut, bundled and carried, balanced on her head, for over a half mile.
And the water she uses in cooking she may have had to collect in large buckets and, like the firewood, lugged to the house. Water is about eight pounds per gallon…a family of five goes through a lot of gallons…the math makes my back hurt.
And then there is the typical housework…I’ve seen moms determinedly sweeping dirt floors and most houses I’ve dropped in on are quite orderly and well kept. There’s laundry for the family—often done under very difficult conditions, given the lack of available water. It’s just one hard, often back breaking task, after another. That their spirits are as good as they are is a testimony to the human spirit and a person choosing to have a good attitude.
Children in this environment tend to learn to contribute to the family toil at a young age…I’m sure there isn’t a lot of whining, not that I remember my own kids ever doing that! Our sponsored children are happy to help out when needed…and thankful for the opportunity to be able to attend school and not get a “real job” to help supplement the family income. That’s often a tough choice the families make. But most of our sponsored children are able to attend school and big reason for that is parents typically really believe education is the best chance the kids have for a future better than what the parents are experiencing. And our staffs work hard to reinforce that concept!
So, however you spent your Labor Day, whether enjoying a picnic with the family or “laboring” around the house or in the yard, it’s nice to remember how central labor is to the families you’re helping through sponsorship!
Hope you had a nice and safe Labor Day!
Jim
Jim Cook is the president and CEO of Children International.
At the waistline of the World, half a league over seas and oceans, the mottled outline of Earth's tectonic bosom cradles the city below. I behold, through wispy haze, the vestiges of a conquistador’s Elysium…
The mountainous area that surrounds Quito is shockingly gorgeous. Its Andean air is a pleasure to breathe, while succulent clouds tease the eye from greater heights. And yet at city-level, the reality of human life smothers the carnival of emotions swirling inside of me.
Before long, thoughts start to grind their way through my head, reducing my ego to pulp. Here I stand in a neighborhood located in a single section of one city of a developing country among many around the world. How many more people are out there – how many more instances of abused and abandoned children, of battered and desolate mothers, of families imprisoned within labyrinthine grids of cold concrete, cane, and dirt so dismal they would make Daedalus smile?
While I bask in sunlight, there are so many more who soak in clammy darkness. And rather than blind myself with the light of a good life, I continue squinting toward the mouth of that pit and tighten my grip on the small piece of rope in my pocket. There are very long pieces in the hands of a few, but I should not wait for them. I should tie mine to the small bits of many others who share theirs, and together, we may have enough to lasso the Moon.
These baroque allusions are nothing but a smoke screen for my lack of answers. The hope I have in humanity's ability for compassion and charity, regardless of our source for inspiration or however we might find them, is one of the few antidotes to my paralyzing frustration regarding poverty.
David Nebel is a translator and photographer for Children International. In this post, he reflects on a recent visit to the children and families of our child sponsorship program in Ecuador.
I admit it. I’m guilty. It’s been a while since I’ve written to my sponsored child, Alexis in Mexico. He’s a cute little guy, and he’s finally started writing his own letters, so what’s stopping me? Well, life goes a little crazy sometimes. I keep thinking I’ll write him, and then something else comes up.
Know the feeling? Well, there’s an easy way to write your sponsored child without sifting through card after card at the pharmacy, no stamps to buy, no need to worry about less than perfect penmanship (tell me about it) ... no excuses.
You can write a quick note to your child through Children International’s My Account. Not sure what to say? We’ve got a webpage with some suggestions. Log into your account and click on Write Your Child on the left. Letting your sponsored child know how special he or she is to you is just that simple.
I’ll be taking my own advice now. One letter to the coolest little boy in Mexico coming right up...
Photo by Communications Coordinator for Children International in Guatemala, Javier Cárcamo.
Because the bulk of our child sponsorship program operates internationally, many people don't realize that we also help needy children in the United States. Meet the Children International sponsorship agency in Little Rock, Arkansas, and see how we're working to lend a helping hand close to home.
I'm the one member of the team that visited Ecuador last week who hasn't yet blogged about it, so I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on the trip.
Today I'm blessed to lead a comfortable, middle-class life in the United States of America. But when I visit sponsored families, it doesn't take long to fit in; after all, these are the children I played with as a child growing up in South America. Their moms and dads were the people down the street. This proximity helped me understand that people living in dire poverty are not just faceless statistics; they have names, faces, fears, hopes and dreams for the future.
Walking into their homes is always a reality check. It's hard to reconcile the bare cinderblock or thin-slatted walls, the paneless windows, the rusted tin sheets with the sun shining through in a thousand places, the threadbare furniture and the stacks of clothing and personal effects around the walls -- piled there because there is no closet or wardrobe, no dresser, no place to store anything -- with the gracious smiles on the faces of your hosts. And at some point during the visit, most likely one of the young daughters of the family will quietly slip into the room, proudly bringing you a glass of Coke.
You quickly do the mental math and realize what that single glass of Coke represents to the family. With a daily income that might not exceed a couple of dollars -- if it comes in at all -- a glass of Coke is liquid gold. As you quietly murmur a word of thanks, you see the faces of your hosts light up with real joy at the ability to honor their guest. Any thought of turning down their offer vanishes and, humbled, you make sure they see how much you really enjoy their kindness.
I wish every sponsor could make a visit to their sponsored child. It will forever change the way you think about life. You'll be able to put names and faces on courage and graciousness.
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