Creating a Safe Passage for Kids March 12, 2019
It had been nearly eight years since Bruce and I had begun our affiliation with Safe Passage as volunteers in the fall of 2011. Despite having had some exposure to the project in the intervening years, we hadn't spent any amount of time there. We were eager for this year's week-long visit to see what new developments had taken place and to share the project with friends from home.
As many of you know, Safe Passage (Camino Seguro in Spanish) is an organization that offers education - and so much more - to the exceedingly impoverished children and families who live and support themselves in the area of the Guatemala City dump. Many parents and older teens pick the dump to salvage and sell what millions of others have discarded. Ever since that initial volunteer experience, Bruce and I have been sincere supporters. As a result, we have sponsored a child, Charly, for the past four years. In addition, our church sponsors a young teen, named Jordie. We visited Charly and Jordie in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
More recently, we spent almost all of 2018 organizing a small group to come to Guatemala for a first hand experience learning about the project. A week ago, Bruce and I flew down to Guatemala at the end of our month-long stay in Mexico. After those many months of organizing and fund-raising in our home town of Gorham, Maine, it was exciting to greet our Support Team at the airport in Guatemala City on Saturday, March 2. The team includes Bruce and his harem of 8 women. He has vacillated between being delighted and being on female-overload!
Our fantastic team: Deb, Linda, Karen, Donna, Jane, Carol, Kyren, Heather, & Bruce
As part of their Support Team initiative, Safe Passage arranges for our accommodations and all of our meals for the week, and they have done an outstanding job! As in the past, we stayed in the town of Antigua. It's a UNESCO World Heritage city whose roots extend back to the 1500's when it was the colonial capital of the Spanish empire. Our hotel, Convento Santa Catalina, is situated in a former convent, next to the iconic yellow arch. It dates to the 1600's with some of the original colonial architecture, including an inner courtyard with a fountain. The nuns moved out in the mid-1700's, after the third destructive earthquake.
The courtyard at our Hotel El Convento in Antigua, Guatemala. Can you see the tip of Volcan Agua in the middle?
All of us were immediately charmed by our rooms, furnished in simple Guatamalan antique decor and tucked away quietly in a far corner - like the cloistered nuns who lived here originally.
Each day at Safe Passage was jam-packed with activities. We began with breakfast at the hotel on an open patio that surrounds the courtyard. Soft music played while we chatted and enjoyed the crisp morning air and a view of the volcano, Agua, which overlooks the city. Then we piled into the mini-van for the hour's ride to Guatemala City with our driver, Rodolfo. We have come to appreciate his quiet reliability, safe driving, and clean van.
Along the way, Kasidy, our team coordinator, filled out our growing awareness of the Guatemalan culture and the challenges faced by the families in the dump community. Like Hanley Denning, the beloved founder of Safe Passage, Kasidy is a young Maine woman who is incredibly hard-working and passionate in her commitment to these children.
We arrived at the project around 9 am, ready to begin our round of carefully planned activities, designed to give us an exposure to the wide sweep of Safe Passage's embrace! Our experience began, appropriately enough, with a video interview of Hanley Denning, completed not long before she died in a tragic car accident in 2007. It's impossible not to be moved to tears at the deep sensitivity, vision, joy, and humility of this exceptional young woman.
Heather, Bruce Carol, & Jane with a photo of Hanley Denning
The video was followed by a short ride to a place from where we had a view of the massive dump, high above its garbage-filled ravines. The smell, the dust, the heat, the vultures hovering overhead, made quite an impression. We gained a sense of the strength required to make a living among the dangers of toxic refuse, huge trucks, and landslides.
Massive trucks come and go all day into the dump. It's hot, dirty work.
Over the course of the rest of the week, we sat in on English classes, library sessions, and helped with recess for children of various ages. We had lunch with the kids and learned that they are offered 5 meals a day. As a result, they are showing marked gains in height and health.
Heather helps the teacher of the 6th grade English class.
We participated in a zumba class for the mothers - that was a work-out! - learned some of the Mayan language - a mental work-out - helped sort and organize a closet-ful of forgotten stuff (Bruce says that he's inviting the team to our house for a similar activity), learned about the program for mothers to create beads and make jewelry, offering them a chance to get out of the dump-picking business, and then made our own bracelets and shopped "till we dropped" at their small boutique. Those moms who choose to do so may attend school, play sports, and make up for their own lost childhoods.
Looking down on roofs in the barrio
One of our major activities was teaching a 40 minute English lesson to each group of 4 year olds, 5 year olds, and 6 year olds. The lessons began with Kasidy showing these young tykes the books created by Gorham fifth graders. They loved seeing the images of winter in Maine! Deb Smith, team member and kindergarten teacher extraordinaire, had planned a lesson using one of the beautiful books created and donated by Gorham artist/author Cathy Falwell. All of the children worked hard completing a follow-up activity. It was so satisfying to see the older groups refer to the books for details.
Kasidy, our team coordinator, and Deb & Karen prepare for our English lesson
Deb, Kasidy, & Linda sharing a story with the youngest students
Another highlight of the week was our family fiesta with the families of the three children sponsored by members of the team. We had decided to invite the children and their families to join the team for pizza - and birthday cake, since it was nearly Charly's birthday. Kids love having their sponsors meet their parents and siblings - and we enjoyed meeting them, too. It gives us a more complete sense of "our" kids - and a closer bond with the families.
Around 4 pm, parents would arrive to walk their children home. We would sink gratefully into the seats in Rodolfo's van for our ride back to Antigua, our heads and hearts overflowing with information and stories. Each day brought a deeper appreciation for the life-changing work that is being done at Safe Passage.
Our evenings were spent having dinner in a selection of great little restaurants in Antigua (included in our extremely reasonable fee for the week). One of the staff would join us to laugh and converse and imbibe a bit along with us! This was a chance to ask questions and have fun. The contrast between the two worlds was not lost on us.
A Guatemalan cooking class was on the agenda one evening. We were all dragging as we found our way to the resto after an exceedingly full day. By the time that we had giggled and chatted our way through patting tortillas and mashing avocados and combining an exotic mix for traditional pepian, we were all feeling light and restored.
Donna mashing avocados for our meal together.
Kyren and Heather look on as Kerry prepares dough for tortillas.
By the time Friday came, we were ready for a free day. Most of the team explored a coffee farm and had quite an adventure getting there in the back of an open pick-up truck. Our youngest members climbed a volcano and roasted marshmallows on the hot lava at the top. Bruce and I mostly rested!
Our last day with the project was a Saturday outing to a water park with a group of teens. They have a chance to do this a couple of times a year and really look forward to it. It was an 80+ degree day - perfect for splashing in an impressive selection of pools for every ability level. We loved playing together and seeing the teens have a moment away from the harshness of their daily lives.
One small part of an impressive water park near Guatemala City
It should be noted that, before we left home, the Gorham community had generously worked for months, in various ways, to support our trip. Six of us are members of First Parish Church, whose members attended our fund-raising events and sent us off with donations of money and love; the Sunday School class created small art cards and sent blank cards so that the Safe Passage kids could reciprocate; church member and Maine Art Teacher of the Year (yay, Allie Rimkunas) came up with this lovely exchange idea and donated high quality colored pencils and markers.
Cathy Falwell, Gorham author of books for young children, gave us a box of her bi-lingual books.
Under the guidance of church member and fifth grade teacher, Kim Meggison, the entire fifth grade class at Village Elementary School (80 students) engaged in an amazing project of writing books for the Safe Passage students, which were then translated by the high school Spanish class. They were also encouraged to do chores at home to earn money to buy school supplies for Safe Passage. Some students held bake sales to earn money or engaged in other fund-raising projects. As a result, a big load of markers and play dough and scissors, etc. will brighten up the classrooms.
Gifts from Gorham, Maine
All in all, it was an incredibly inspiring week. In a nation where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, income inequality is severe, and 50% of the children are malnourished, hope for a better future is a valuable commodity. Witnessing the idealism and love among the Safe Passage staff, the quality of the educational experience - and the determination of the students to create better lives for themselves - was a gift for all of us. Hanley Denning was known for her pep talk to her staff, saying "We have work to do, people!" I feel sure that Hanley would be proud of the work being done there today. As a group, we are eager to continue and expand our own support.
ps. Safe Passage is protective of their students' privacy. Thus, I have not included photos of the children.
As many of you know, Safe Passage (Camino Seguro in Spanish) is an organization that offers education - and so much more - to the exceedingly impoverished children and families who live and support themselves in the area of the Guatemala City dump. Many parents and older teens pick the dump to salvage and sell what millions of others have discarded. Ever since that initial volunteer experience, Bruce and I have been sincere supporters. As a result, we have sponsored a child, Charly, for the past four years. In addition, our church sponsors a young teen, named Jordie. We visited Charly and Jordie in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
More recently, we spent almost all of 2018 organizing a small group to come to Guatemala for a first hand experience learning about the project. A week ago, Bruce and I flew down to Guatemala at the end of our month-long stay in Mexico. After those many months of organizing and fund-raising in our home town of Gorham, Maine, it was exciting to greet our Support Team at the airport in Guatemala City on Saturday, March 2. The team includes Bruce and his harem of 8 women. He has vacillated between being delighted and being on female-overload!
As part of their Support Team initiative, Safe Passage arranges for our accommodations and all of our meals for the week, and they have done an outstanding job! As in the past, we stayed in the town of Antigua. It's a UNESCO World Heritage city whose roots extend back to the 1500's when it was the colonial capital of the Spanish empire. Our hotel, Convento Santa Catalina, is situated in a former convent, next to the iconic yellow arch. It dates to the 1600's with some of the original colonial architecture, including an inner courtyard with a fountain. The nuns moved out in the mid-1700's, after the third destructive earthquake.
All of us were immediately charmed by our rooms, furnished in simple Guatamalan antique decor and tucked away quietly in a far corner - like the cloistered nuns who lived here originally.
Each day at Safe Passage was jam-packed with activities. We began with breakfast at the hotel on an open patio that surrounds the courtyard. Soft music played while we chatted and enjoyed the crisp morning air and a view of the volcano, Agua, which overlooks the city. Then we piled into the mini-van for the hour's ride to Guatemala City with our driver, Rodolfo. We have come to appreciate his quiet reliability, safe driving, and clean van.
Along the way, Kasidy, our team coordinator, filled out our growing awareness of the Guatemalan culture and the challenges faced by the families in the dump community. Like Hanley Denning, the beloved founder of Safe Passage, Kasidy is a young Maine woman who is incredibly hard-working and passionate in her commitment to these children.
We arrived at the project around 9 am, ready to begin our round of carefully planned activities, designed to give us an exposure to the wide sweep of Safe Passage's embrace! Our experience began, appropriately enough, with a video interview of Hanley Denning, completed not long before she died in a tragic car accident in 2007. It's impossible not to be moved to tears at the deep sensitivity, vision, joy, and humility of this exceptional young woman.
The video was followed by a short ride to a place from where we had a view of the massive dump, high above its garbage-filled ravines. The smell, the dust, the heat, the vultures hovering overhead, made quite an impression. We gained a sense of the strength required to make a living among the dangers of toxic refuse, huge trucks, and landslides.
Massive trucks come and go all day into the dump. It's hot, dirty work.Over the course of the rest of the week, we sat in on English classes, library sessions, and helped with recess for children of various ages. We had lunch with the kids and learned that they are offered 5 meals a day. As a result, they are showing marked gains in height and health.
We participated in a zumba class for the mothers - that was a work-out! - learned some of the Mayan language - a mental work-out - helped sort and organize a closet-ful of forgotten stuff (Bruce says that he's inviting the team to our house for a similar activity), learned about the program for mothers to create beads and make jewelry, offering them a chance to get out of the dump-picking business, and then made our own bracelets and shopped "till we dropped" at their small boutique. Those moms who choose to do so may attend school, play sports, and make up for their own lost childhoods.
One of our major activities was teaching a 40 minute English lesson to each group of 4 year olds, 5 year olds, and 6 year olds. The lessons began with Kasidy showing these young tykes the books created by Gorham fifth graders. They loved seeing the images of winter in Maine! Deb Smith, team member and kindergarten teacher extraordinaire, had planned a lesson using one of the beautiful books created and donated by Gorham artist/author Cathy Falwell. All of the children worked hard completing a follow-up activity. It was so satisfying to see the older groups refer to the books for details.
Another highlight of the week was our family fiesta with the families of the three children sponsored by members of the team. We had decided to invite the children and their families to join the team for pizza - and birthday cake, since it was nearly Charly's birthday. Kids love having their sponsors meet their parents and siblings - and we enjoyed meeting them, too. It gives us a more complete sense of "our" kids - and a closer bond with the families.
Around 4 pm, parents would arrive to walk their children home. We would sink gratefully into the seats in Rodolfo's van for our ride back to Antigua, our heads and hearts overflowing with information and stories. Each day brought a deeper appreciation for the life-changing work that is being done at Safe Passage.
Our evenings were spent having dinner in a selection of great little restaurants in Antigua (included in our extremely reasonable fee for the week). One of the staff would join us to laugh and converse and imbibe a bit along with us! This was a chance to ask questions and have fun. The contrast between the two worlds was not lost on us.
A Guatemalan cooking class was on the agenda one evening. We were all dragging as we found our way to the resto after an exceedingly full day. By the time that we had giggled and chatted our way through patting tortillas and mashing avocados and combining an exotic mix for traditional pepian, we were all feeling light and restored.
By the time Friday came, we were ready for a free day. Most of the team explored a coffee farm and had quite an adventure getting there in the back of an open pick-up truck. Our youngest members climbed a volcano and roasted marshmallows on the hot lava at the top. Bruce and I mostly rested!
Our last day with the project was a Saturday outing to a water park with a group of teens. They have a chance to do this a couple of times a year and really look forward to it. It was an 80+ degree day - perfect for splashing in an impressive selection of pools for every ability level. We loved playing together and seeing the teens have a moment away from the harshness of their daily lives.
One small part of an impressive water park near Guatemala CityIt should be noted that, before we left home, the Gorham community had generously worked for months, in various ways, to support our trip. Six of us are members of First Parish Church, whose members attended our fund-raising events and sent us off with donations of money and love; the Sunday School class created small art cards and sent blank cards so that the Safe Passage kids could reciprocate; church member and Maine Art Teacher of the Year (yay, Allie Rimkunas) came up with this lovely exchange idea and donated high quality colored pencils and markers.
Cathy Falwell, Gorham author of books for young children, gave us a box of her bi-lingual books.
Under the guidance of church member and fifth grade teacher, Kim Meggison, the entire fifth grade class at Village Elementary School (80 students) engaged in an amazing project of writing books for the Safe Passage students, which were then translated by the high school Spanish class. They were also encouraged to do chores at home to earn money to buy school supplies for Safe Passage. Some students held bake sales to earn money or engaged in other fund-raising projects. As a result, a big load of markers and play dough and scissors, etc. will brighten up the classrooms.
All in all, it was an incredibly inspiring week. In a nation where 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, income inequality is severe, and 50% of the children are malnourished, hope for a better future is a valuable commodity. Witnessing the idealism and love among the Safe Passage staff, the quality of the educational experience - and the determination of the students to create better lives for themselves - was a gift for all of us. Hanley Denning was known for her pep talk to her staff, saying "We have work to do, people!" I feel sure that Hanley would be proud of the work being done there today. As a group, we are eager to continue and expand our own support.
ps. Safe Passage is protective of their students' privacy. Thus, I have not included photos of the children.
No comments:
Post a Comment