New Year's visit Chuchi Pañal
On 1 January, our friend, Chuchi Pañal, surprised us with a New Year's visit. He is a well-known personality in San Pedro Sula. He entertained the children all afternoon with games, balloon creatures and theatre puppets. Since he knows our children, he imitated them with puppets. It was so funny that the children could hardly recover from laughing.
It was unbelievable how a visit from just one person could bring so much joy to the children. Oh yes, the joy was mutual: he almost didn't want to leave the home....
Trip to the mount Coca-Cola
To get the year off to a good start, we hiked up Coca-Cola Mountain as we do every year. This one-hour hike is really nice. Here we are allowed to walk outside in nature and can chat in small groups and reflect on the world. In the middle of the trail we all get an orange as a snack and at the finish line at the Coca-Cola sign we get a coconut. First we drink the coconut water and then we enjoy the young coconut meat.
From this viewpoint you have a beautiful view of the whole city. I can then explain the city and declare the excursion as part of the geography lesson.
Visits
The company Grupo Karim has been supporting us for years. They visit us, among other things, during the induction of new employees, so that they also gain an insight into the social commitment of the company. It is always a pleasure for us to introduce the new employees to our world.
Groups from the San Vicente de Paul Church also visit us about twice a month. They come well-prepared by choosing a theme, such as respect, obedience, consideration, charity, motivation or life goals, and prepare various activities on the chosen theme. This allows for great and meaningful interactions with our children.
Pizza with Cynthia
Cynthia Sieber from Winterthur visited us 3 times last year. In the meantime, she is more than "just" a volunteer. She has become part of our family.
It has become a ritual that she invites us to Pizza Hut for pizza the evening before she goes home. There is a big playground with slides and plenty of space to run around. The children enjoy the change of scenery, the delicious pizzas and especially the free drink refill, which they make good use of.
Tat and Tatta
My parents Pauli and Luisa Scarpatetti, or simply Tat and Tatta as everyone calls them here, visited us for 6 weeks and once again took on the role of grandparents for the children. Tat is always responsible for all the repair work in the home. This year he renovated the outdoor kitchen, put together all the furniture that arrived with the container, fitted a new roof in the baby ward and did a lot of work that nobody else does... Tatta has been busy baking and playing with the little ones. Everyone really enjoyed the visit from Tat and Tatta. The highlight was the day by the sea in Tela. We were allowed to use the pools and the beach in a hotel. An excursion like this is very special. We took the opportunity to take some lovely sibling photos on the beach.
New School Year
After the past three years of massive setbacks at school due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of the hurricanes, pupils and teachers finally returned to their classrooms this year.
However, the biggest problem is still that more than 1.1 million children and young people are not enrolled in the school system. There are many reasons for this:
- 50.2% due of poverty,
- 26.3% do not want to study,
- 8.2% have family or health problems,
- 11.9% did not give a specific reason,
- and 3.4% said they did not have a school in their area
Considering that in all of Honduras only about 20% of students can attend a public school, it is a great privilege for our children to be part of that 20%. Public school education is massively underfunded.
Thousands of pupils have no access to education because there are no classrooms, teachers or teaching materials to provide for them. Many education centers have been waiting years for investment and are therefore only able to offer limited teaching.
Our 19 primary and 6 secondary school pupils from the "Laura Vicuña of Don Bosco" nuns' school, as well as the 5 older high school graduates from the "Instituto Tecnológico Sampedrano" are among the privileged ones who lack nothing and have the best educational conditions for a good school education.
Geovanni attends the "Centro Técnico Hondureño Alemán" for his tenth year of secondary school, specialising in metal construction. And Josue attends the special school IMDEE (Instituto Municipal de Educación Especial).
Here are a few more details about the school: School hours are from 7.00 a.m. to 1.15 p.m., with a break in the morning. The kindergarten teachers finish their lessons at 11.00 am. We use our own bus to transport our children.
We have employed a teacher for our children who ensures that the children complete their homework in the afternoon and also gives them extra tuition if necessary.
Valentine’s Day
In Honduras, the day of love and friendship is also celebrated on 14 February. Our children's home residents have learnt to love each other and become friends.
On this day, we organised various games with lots of prizes and played with them. Everyone was very motivated. One important ritual that we carried out very consciously was to tell the children their positive qualities, which made them realise how important they are and how grateful we are that they are part of the "Yo Quiero Ser..." family.
Pantomime
27 March is National Theatre Day in Honduras. Our children were invited to take part in a pantomime workshop. They learnt how to express a scene and/or story using only gestures. They rehearsed various facial expressions and performed them at the end of the day.
This day was organised by Proyecto Teatral Futuro and enabled our children to make new friends.
Early Stimulation
Every morning, our psychologist works with the little ones at Sala Cuna in the area of early stimulation. First on the programme are fine motor skills, where they can paint and complete tasks on certain topics using various materials. Then they practise their gross motor skills in the toy library.
Six of our toddlers are currently in the early stimulation group. The success of this early childhood development programme is evident when the children enter kindergarten. The teachers there are always amazed at how much prior knowledge the little ones already have, even though they usually had a difficult start in life.
Inflation 9.8%
Finally, I would like to mention one more figure: 9.8. On paper, almost 10% doesn't seem that relevant. However, an inflation rate of 9.8% is very noticeable in everyday life. The development of international oil and commodity prices, as well as the still faltering supply chain, continue to have a significant impact on the development of domestic prices. Honduras had an inflation rate of 9.8% in 2022. Switzerland, by comparison, only had a rate of 2.8%.