We previously wrote about a young girl from the community of
our current public school project. She
was sitting next to an adult at a roadside café eating pupusas when a gunman
drove past and fired shoots. Joselyn was hit in the throat. She was hospitalized for months. When the
doctors didn’t have the experience to perform surgery, they contacted a
hospital in Boston for assistance.
Joselyn had surgery there and will need more to repair her breathing and
eating functions. A recent picture shows
her gaining weight and looking much better.
We are writing from El Salvador. Our first week has been spent with a Habitat
Build. A group of sixteen from around the USA has
gathered, some with experience and a couple of first timers. Thrivent Financial has been building homes in
the Santa Ana area since the past earthquake.
While building homes might be completed in this particular community, we
hope Thrivent Financial continues its support of Habitat in other
locations. El Salvador is still short
over 400,000 homes.
The remainder of our visit will focus on our agriculture and
public school projects. We continue in agriculture
as food production is limited and food needs to be imported. Our projects create small businesses for poor
rural families. Forty nine families
participated in the past project, learning the latest practices to improve
yields and some were provided rented land.
All total, approximately 150 families have benefit from these small
business projects. Also five women’s
cooperatives were established for raising chickens.
Nine high school graduates were provided scholarships to
learn a trade at the technical school in Usulután. They finish studies in December but the
graduation ceremony will be in March and we will have to miss it.
With continued violence throughout the country, many
businesses have closed. Others and our
project partners are determining what new practices can be established to
protect their equipment, employees and customers. With that in mind, we have partnered to establish
a Technical School for the study of agriculture in the western zone of the
country. The students will need a high school education to attend. Our goal is
to make this school sustainable, using many of the practices our friend Daniel
experienced at Wellspring Organic Farm in Newburg, Wisconsin.
The last week will close with the dedication of the new Kindergarten
classroom building that we have been fundraising for this past year. Forty students will attend in the morning and
another forty in the afternoon session.
After the formal dedication ceremony, the first ninth grade class will
graduate. We received a special invitation
so our plans include attending to enjoy one our most rewarding projects. Our donors have strengthened this public
school by providing class room dividers, new roofs, windows and an
air-conditioned computer lab. In adding the 7, 8, 9 grade classes, our donors
have provided the desks and text books for students and teachers.
At our first visit to the school in 2013, the enrollment was
270, now it’s over 500. The students stay in their community to attend school
and can avoid all the gang turf wars that are penalizing the education of its youth. It’s estimated over 80,000 youth stay home as
the streets are too dangerous to travel.
This has resulted in schools closing and teachers being laid off.
This is why school projects are so important for changing the
future of the youth, families and communities.
David y Nancy
