Carol in Honduras

I think it’s pretty darn wonderful. The least fortunate kids in Honduran society have a tremendous environment to be nurtured in. Their moms… in some of the worst of all possible life situations, have a safe and nurturing environment for their kids as well as providing programs for their own personal development.

I can remember when I was asking Emily how to describe the place. Day Care simply didn’t cover it. I still refer to it as the Day Care/Family support centre. I’ll have to ask her how she describes it.

Emily’s philosophy of caring for the whole family and providing an educationally rich and loving environment for the children is evident in their programs and space.

This is the daily schedule

The older kids play Monopoly, Sorry and Candyland. The little kids do puzzles.

And then there is lunch. The kids are provided with balanced, nutritional meals and snacks.

I tried to help a little by keeping these two little guys from “distracting” each other.

Thanks being given………for the food. But these families have much to be thankful for… Casita Copan, their staff, their programs and their caring.

For some, this is pretty much their food for the day.

The hallway has wonderful photos of the kids done by Carolina Sandoval.

The Centre’s rooms speak to their focus on providing a wealth of learning and play.

Much to my surprise… it was a successful meeting. Parents and students from El Chilar came to meet with me about the Jr Hi program we started in their community. Truthfully, I was skeptical about any involvement from these folks. It has a reputation of being a really tough community to deal with.

Students filling out the application forms that is one of my criteria for continuing this program. This year families were asked to contribute both financially (a monthly fee) and in participation. I will meet with students and families each time I visit here.

I had the pleasure of sitting in on the “Skype” meeting of the US board of Casita Copan tonight. What an interesting new world this is when you can conduct board meetings internationally on skype. Main topics included their plan for Casita Copan in the coming year, expanding their fund raising base, and a report on the extensive survey Emily has done of their recipients to establish needs for future program planning. Some of the common themes from the interviews were a lack of trust in relationships, sexual violence in the womens lives (60% verbalizing abuse but Emily believes it is closer to 100%). At the present time A Better World is supplying the funding for the Women’s Literacy program. The exams for the year are on Monday but probably the most remarkable accomplishment is that these 7 women committed to attending the Literacy classes and followed through. Some of the other benefits were the development of relationships among the women and some obvious development of confidence in these ladies who became more willing to “talk” and share their thoughts, feelings and ideas.

An ongoing dream is to one day make this a children’s home. At the present time there are two children who have been abandoned and are parentless… Casita Copan has
made sure these children are looked after.

Emily the Casita Copan Director and Jessie, a board member meeting over Skype tonight

One of the projects that Emily and Casita Copan are starting is a bed project. Many of the 14 families have NO bed and others have one that the entire family shares. Her hope is to provide a basic frame and foam mattress to each family. I will investigate the actual cost per bed and perhaps have A Better World provide some funds for the project.

Usually there is no such thing as a REALLY good day when I am doing project work… let alone a PERFECT day. card and worked well!

It started with my productive meeting with Rufino and Saul with Plan International about partnering in a possible pilot project of computer based learning in their communities.

Then, a meeting with the assistant mayor about re opening Carizalito school and he said that is their plan for next year. It seems they have cleaned up the area (which probably means they killed the bad guys) and families are moving back into the community.

That was followed by my young micro loan recipient (Carlos) repaying his entire loan to start a family pulperia.

All of that polished off with a successful trip to the ATM. I think I should go to bed now before anything negative can possibly happen.

We played a wild game of chase the plastic balls!