The school year is over and the long holidays are coming up. Our children proudly received their good school reports. We had to say goodbye to Yaxel, Hostin and Elvin and had an unexpected birth in our home. We also got a new kitchen and celebrated Christmas together.
I, Anita 26, have been a volunteer in the "Yo quiero ser..." for four weeks now. In this newsletter I will tell you how I experience everyday life in the children's home.
This October we are talking about the current wave of refugees to the USA. Seven of the oldest children received their confirmation before we all went on our holiday together in Santa Rosa de Copán. In the end there was an unexpected, but hoped for encounter.
We celebrated the "Dia del Niño", the children's day and received a visit from Aguas Ocaña, the former Honduran First Lady. Despite this happy event, it was an emotionally challanging month for everyone. Ariana lost the fight against her disease and we had to say goodbye to her. Although she has left the earth, she will still live on in our hearts... The oppressive atmosphere of grief was still felt in the home eventhough are family grew again by two newborns.
Also this year the national painting competition of more than 50 children's homes from Honduras was on the program. This time with the motto "God created the world and looks at it". Once again, our children have put a lot of effort into it. And behold, the time spent was worth it!
In February 2015 the second floor of our main building was built. The wooden elements were prefabricated in Switzerland, shipped to Honduras and assembled here in San Pedro Sula.
Last November, after the rainy season, we noticed the first damage to the outer walls of the new floor. They were too exposed to the warm and humid climate.
The outer walls started to "rot", their porous wood structure had "absorbed" the water and the daily humidity of about 80-90 % prevented them from drying out.
When we reported this damage to the construction company Strüby, they immediately agreed together with Helmut Zurbuchen of Zurbuchen AG to find a solution to prevent further rotting.
They again shipped two full containers of sheet metal, building materials and construction machinery to Honduras. These arrived in Honduras in mid-June. The 5-man construction team, consisting of Erwin and Sepp Annen from Strüby, Helmut and José from Zurbuchen AG and Pauli…
It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to our newest three family members. The smallest is called Daniela and is one and a half years old. The middle one is called Jairon and is three years old. The oldest is called Pablo and is 4 years old. The two boys came to us under especially bad health and psychological condition...
They play football like world champions, do tricks like all the other kids do, climb mango trees, have a name, but they do not officially exist.
For us in Switzerland this is hard to imagine. In Honduras, however, it is absolutely common that a child is not registered at birth and thus does not officially exist.
In 2001, an estimated 22% of children were not registered. According to recent surveys, more than 64,871 out of 1,170,107 children under the age of 6 are not registered. This means that 5.5% of the Honduran children have no birth certificate.
What disadvantages bring those circumstances with it?
Our little Ariana, who had a malignant tumor in her right eye, has now overcome the 6th cycle of her chemo therapy (3 days each) as well as the eye enucleation. She is a brave one and fought the battle with greatest dignity...
The state organization DINAF asked us on a weekend if the two sisters Cesia, 12 years old and Angie, 9 years old, could spend one night with us. We gladly agreed to them. This one night has already become 2 months ...
At the beginning of the new calendar year 2018, we held workshop, during an afternoon, with our children. We first looked back at the year 2017. Everyone named their positive personal events and then tried to let go of the "negative" moments. As a result, each child has personally cleaned up the 2017 in order to tackle the New Year with good intentions.
Our teacher who plays the guitar musically accompanied this afternoon. Symbolically, each child gave water to his inner life-plant to make it grow and flourish even more during this New Year, with the hope to harvest fruits of their own success at the end of 2018.
Theater week
School holidays are already coming to an end. From the remaining weeks we have transformed two of them into theater weeks. The children were divided into groups and each group received different topics, which they then had to deal with in order to recite scenes in theatrical form.
The topics of the first week were "Jesus is ....",…
