The Piñata Maker
The community of Montelimar is south of San Salvador, near a town named Olocuilta. The road near Montelimar, which leads to the airport, takes you past a scene that appears desolate. Even though the community has brick houses, electricity and potable water, the desolation of the surroundings and the distance from every other community make it feel almost like a batey or a slum.
The community holds about 2,500 homes, with an average of five people per home, according to the last census Rosario’s church conducted. (Rosario is a Compassion-assisted child in this community.) Most of the families rent space as they cannot afford to pay between $8,000 and $10,000 for a home. Most of them work at factories called maquilas, earning the minimum salary — about $170 per month.
Rent goes between $40 and $50, depending on the condition of the home. For some families, who earn their income as street vendors or have large families, their income barely covers the basic staples, and their option is to inhabit an unoccupied home, with the risk that someday an owner will appear and kick them out.
Sometimes a house will suddenly be empty. The reason lays in the comunity’s biggest problem — gangs.
In poor communities like Montelimar, gangs are a constant threat. Nobody comes in or out without them noticing. In fact, the commercial activity in the community has gone down, and small businesses such as pupuserias (little and simple dining places where they sell a local dish called pupusas) or convenience and staples stores are gone because the gangs ask them for “rent,” which means business owners have to pay a weekly amount of hundreds of dollars to receive “protection.” Otherwise, the gangs will do as they wish with the store and the owners.
In Rosario’s case, her family rents and her father, who sells sandwiches on a little cart on the streets of San Salvador and earns the minimum salary, supports the family.
Rosario is a quiet 12-year-old girl, very shy and organized. She is the oldest of four siblings. Even though she is very quiet, Rosario has many friends at school and at the child development center she attends.
Chasing Off the Leopard of Hunger in Uganda
In July 2009, a cry for help went up in parts of northern and eastern Uganda as many people succumbed to the severe and persistent drought that swept across half of the nation. Soroti district was one of the localities that was hardest hit. However, this cry was not new to this part of the country.
Every year Soroti district is listed as a statistic for emergency help. It is said to be one of the districts with the highest levels of poverty in the country, with a very low education level and inhabitants ignorant of cultivation skills. Many have painful memories of war.
With unpredictable weather, from hot and dry conditions that lead to drought and famine, to strong winds and rain that destroy homes and crops, the inhabitants of the land never know what to expect of fickle nature and how to overcome the damage left behind.
To the local inhabitants, the hunger and famine that come with the changing seasons is a leopard looking for the helpless and hopeless to devour. But for a few people in the community, it is time to fight back.
For the beneficiaries of the Asuret and Victory Outreach Orwadai Child Development Centers, it is time to hunt down and chase the “leopard,” and banish it for good.
A Time Such as This
I hit a point several weeks ago where I didn’t think I could handle seeing one more thing or reading one more article about Haiti. I needed some distance and recuperating time, which is a good thing. But despite the time of stress and trauma, there is one thing we must keep doing:
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” – Ephesians 6:18, (NIV)
Imagine this.
You’re at work and you run into a coworker. You ask them how they’re doing. Their aunt has just passed away, and they’re having a hard time dealing with it.
Then you’re sitting in a meeting at work. You look around and realize that every single person in the room has had a loved one die in the past month. One a cousin. One a pastor. One a father.
Now imagine that you haven’t slept in your own bed for one month. 30 full days.
You’re not sure your home is safe, so you, your spouse and your kids are sleeping in a tent outside. At night you hear the dogs bark and cars roaring up steep hills. You don’t remember the last time you got a full night’s sleep. You duck inside your home in the mornings to shower, but other than that, you stay clear away from those uncertain walls.
Now imagine you have also just had your brother and and a good friend both pass away on the same day.
How Do Sports Help Release Children From Poverty?
Four years ago, the Alfa y Omega Student Center opened its doors to the children of the community in San Benito, Nicaragua. And the work that initially looked hard is now obtaining great results.
Little more than a year ago, the idea of putting together sports teams at the center flourished. Three teams were formed: baseball, volleyball and soccer, and children volunteered to be part of one of them.
Sponsored Child, Radio Evangelist
It is 6 a.m. in the community of Talanga, just 45 kilometers from Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras, and the radio program for children, “Oasis of Love,” is about to start.
One of the commentators is 12-year-old Olvin, the voice for the children in this special radio program produced by his church pastor.
The radio program is organized by the Iglesia de Dios de la Profecia and intends to spread the message of God’s love to every child, through music, Bible stories, a prayer time, and a question and answer time — an important part of the program in which Olvin has a big participation as he expresses his comments over the questions, and later prays for the children’s needs.
What Does Child Sponsorship Mean in Burkina Faso?
Pastor Korogo has been a pastor since 2002. He officiates as junior pastor in the central church of the Assemblies of God Church of Ziniaré, 30 kilometers from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
In 2008, when the church began partnering with Compassion, Pastor Korogo was recruited as child development center director because of his long-standing experience in the ministry among the children of his church.
The development center has 220 registered children who take part regularly in center activities. Like all the other centers in the country, it is located in an area where poverty is visible in people’s daily lives.
The great majority of the population does not have access to drinking water or electricity. When someone in these families falls ill, he is cared for with indigenous methods, as families can’t afford medical care or drugs at the pharmacy.
The child development center is located in a community that is nearly 70 percent Islamic. The largest mosque in the city is 10 meters from the church that shelters the center. This proximity sometimes makes it difficult for Muslim children to effectively take part in the center activities.
Clean Water for Haiti
The critical need the poor always have for water has been heightened in Haiti after the earthquake. We’ve used various ways to distribute water to our church partners, and we’re looking to our strategic partnerships to continue to meet the short- and long-term needs.
We have a long-standing relationship with Healing Waters International, providing water systems to church partners in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.
In response to the immense need in Haiti, Healing Waters International has provided 2,500 one-gallon jugs of water at no cost to Compassion Haiti. The water was bottled at the Healing Waters projects at our Dominican Republic church partner sites. If there is continued need, they are equipped to begin bottling on a daily basis.
The water will be trucked to Haiti along with the family food kits being assembled at our warehouse on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border.
We will also investigate several long-term solutions, such as building water systems at church partner sites in Haiti.
According to Gregg Keen, our Complementary Interventions Director,
“Healing Waters International and Compassion have been good partners for several years. When the disaster hit Haiti, Healing Waters was among the first organizations we called to ask what their response would be. They went to heroic efforts to find available water bottles in the DR when none could be found there. Bottled water will help people to avoid drinking and using contaminated water and the related diseases they can cause, especially in a disaster situation like this one. The impact of this can’t even be measured.”
Healing Waters’ mission is to empower local ministry partners to bring physical, social and spiritual transformation to poor communities, a mission that makes them an excellent partner for us.
Read more about our partnership with Healing Waters International.
What Is Life Like for Mexico’s Suburban Poor?
Our child development centers are distributed in different types of settings in Mexico; the biggest difference is between urban and suburban areas. In the context of this blog post, the term “suburban” is defined a bit differently than in the developed world: Suburban areas are smaller cities or towns, normally located on the outskirts of main cities, with at least 5,000 inhabitants, but with few services.
What Is Life Like for the Urban Poor in Mexico’s Cities?
Our child development centers are distributed in different types of settings in Mexico; the biggest difference is between urban and suburban areas.
In the context of this blog post, the terms “urban” is defined a bit differently than in the big cities of the developed world: An urban area corresponds to small communities concentrated in cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, with the majority of public services at hand.
Roberto Medrano: My Best Day in Ministry
Roberto Medrano has worked for Compassion for seven years and now serves as a Learning and Support Specialist for communication and tours in the Central America and Caribbean region.
Please Encourage Our Haiti Staff: Prayers Needed
This blog post is about our staff in Haiti. We would like this to be a bulletin board for you to share your prayers and encouragement for them and
with them.
Although many of our staff have suffered incredible losses as a result of this disaster, we are asking them to perform heroically, and they are!
And they’re doing so in the face of loss and widespread devastation that many of us can only imagine. Because we are a world away, it’s easy to overlook that what we’re asking them to deliver must be obtained in the midst of communication and transportation problems, aftershocks and deep personal trauma.
Numerous members of our staff in Haiti are grieving the deaths of family members and friends. Some have lost their homes, and others are injured themselves.
In light of all this, we ask that you leave a comment or prayer to encourage and strengthen them. We guarantee that they will see your comments, even if the comments have to be printed out in order to be delivered. We hope that as communication becomes more reliable, they will have the ability and opportunity to respond to you.
On behalf of our staff and Haiti, thank you.
The Reality of Child Prostitution in Brazil
Young people fill the sidewalks, and are found in front of the dirty hotels, waiting for their next clients. Illiterate or of low education, these young people are unprepared for the labor market. In prostitution, they have found a mode of survival.
