Prevention in schools

Our last day visiting Toybox projects was again with the Prevention and Rescue team from El Castillo, this time into schools. We arrived as the children were starting their break, so it was fun to talk to them in the playground. They loved us saying their name in English – how do you say Cesar in English? Becky said Colin instead! How do you say Manchester too? They were doing a very good job of pronouncing that correctly as it was!

We then watched the team leading a lesson on Rights and Responsibilities: I have the right to healthcare and the responsibility to look after my health; I have the right to an education and the responsibility to do my homework; I have the right to a family life and the responsibility to help in the home. These principles were taught to the children in lots of different ways to get the message home. These lessons aim to empower the children and encourage them to speak out, as well as being good citizens. The team are also hoping to work with teachers so that they can incorporate these principles into the curriculum.

There is so much great work being done amongst the children in Guatemala, to help them leave street life, providing a safe place for them, and to prevent them going onto the streets in the first place, giving them a hope and a future.

Thank you for following our blog, we hope that you have found it informative and interesting. If you would like to find out more about Toybox, then go to our website: www.toybox.org.uk

You may have been inspired to give regularly to our work, to help to fund some of the work we have been describing. That would be fantastic if you felt able to do that. See the following page for more information on how to do that:

http://www.toybox.org.uk/best_friends.html

Thanks too for your prayers for us, we kept safe, and pretty healthy, though we did have dodgy tummies and insect bites. We arrived home safely and on time!

Prevention & Rescue

Today we headed out with the Prevention & Rescue team from El Castillo, back to the market area near the bus station. Remember the dump we went to on Monday – back there! You know how it is when you are on vacation and you go back somewhere again 3 days later because you enjoyed it so much?

First of all we went into the stalls behind the market place. We waited in a junction of market stalls whilst the team went to see if there were any children around. Soon the children started to gather, and then the team played games with them, shared a bible story using a jigsaw puzzle and gave out biscuits and flavoured milk drinks. These children lived in the tin shacks behind the market stall and were dirty and unkempt; some of them wore traditional Mayan dress.

I was intrigued to observe one woman who lived on the stall next to where we met with all the children. Imagine a shack the size of our kitchen back in MK; well that was where she lived with her 6 children, the youngest of which was about a year old. It was black with smoke from the charcoal fire which she had in the shack, and her existence reminded me of our camping weekends where we made do with very little, only much dirtier and more basic. She also had a small kitten and a chicken running round her shack. I cannot begin to imagine what her life must be like. Engaging her in conversation we discovered that she came from a rural part of Guatemala and spoke an indigenous language, saying that she had moved to the city to give her children a better life.

We then walked to another part of the market where the team engaged in the same activities with another group of children. Thankfully we met with this group at the entrance to the rubbish tip, and not actually on the tip, but the stench was still there, and the dangers.

Walking through the market we were assaulted by many different sights and smells. Some of them were very pleasant – fresh flowers ready to be sold in high class florists, lovely fresh fruit which really did look good enough to eat, avocados, coconuts, tomatoes and other exotic fruit and vegetables which we did not recognise. There were men whose arms and faces were black with the charcoal they were selling, and the smell of rotting fruit and urine as we passed some parts of the market.

We moved on and stopped at a more enclosed space where the market stalls were mainly selling western clothing, which seemed deserted but soon about 10 children had gathered, and a similar programme was repeated by the Prevention & Rescue team. It was great to hear from the team that many children were not here because they were in school, as one of the aims of the team is to meet with the parents and encourage them to send their children to school.

This afternoon we headed off to meet a young man who had recently left El Castillo to begin an independent life as he had turned 18. It was good to hear about his hopes and dreams for his future – to continue his studies and become an engineer. He proudly showed us his grade cards, which had averages over 70%, and it was clear that he was diligent and hard working; his notebooks were extremely neat and tidy. Here was a creative young man too, who enjoyed drawing and being part of the dance group in his church. I pray that this quiet and friendly young man achieves his dreams, though the odds still seem stacked against him as he tries to study and aim for a better life.

Kids in safe places

Our first outing today was to a very small project, a small day nursery for pre-school children with working parents. Then we went onto a much bigger project in the city centre, a day nursery in a very small house packed with 80 children, different ages on each floor. The children come from the families who work on the rubbish dump nearby (the one we saw on Sunday).

This was a place full of love and concern by the staff for the children and the parents. There were not many material resources in this place, but much spiritual resource, when asked about their prayer requests the leader asked that we pray for the families of the children to find Jesus and so turn their lives around.

The children who attend this project are at high risk of abuse of all kinds, trafficking, drugs and violence. They were a very friendly bunch of kids, clamouring to have their photo taken and then see the photo. These kids welcomed us and blessed us, we who have so much compared with they who have so little.

After lunch and a bit of sightseeing in the city centre we headed off to see the new site of El Castillo, called Hierbabuena. The children had recently all moved from 6 different homes to the one site, and seemed to be settling in well to their new environment. Today was “museums day” in Guatemala, with free admission, so we had a fun journey on a school bus with them back from the city to the home. These ex street kids now live in safety in El Castillo, the oldest Toybox project.

After looking around the site and seeing all the kids in their homes, we enjoyed a meal with them of tamales de gallinas (chicken and maize), bread and hot banana & maize juice (sounds awful but was actually delicious). It was great to be with these kids in their new home surroundings and to see how happy they were, just acting like normal kids.

Projects and children

We visited 4 Toybox projects today around the city of Guatemala. It feels like we covered lots of miles over bumpy roads, and the most vicious speed bumps you can imagine in the city, how our van squeaked as we went over them.

The projects were all very diverse, and some seemed quite rural, rather than in the built up areas. We visited one home for 36 children called Vida Ilimitada (Life Unlimited), the children lived and learnt school at the home. Their ages ranged from 0 to 18 – these older ones went off to high school each day. We were told that 7 of the babies had entered the home with HIV and been healed, and that the local doctors were advising that children be taken to the home to be healed from HIV! Here’s some of the children from this home on their morning break, the flowers that they are holding we had brought from Toybox supporters in the UK.  

The most moving visit for me today was to a girls home which looks after 11 girls, and is simply a family that have opened their home to these girls who had experienced sexual abuse and violence in their homes. The girls sang 3 lovely songs for us, and 2 of them told us their very moving stories of the situations that they had been living in, and how God had changed their lives. They spoke of parents hitting and abusing them, feeling suicidal, just wanting to be part of a normal family where they felt loved. One of the girls was most upset to see her sister hit violently too. These girls were lovely and warm to us, giving us lots of hugs when we arrived and left, and watching them worship I could see how much they loved God and trusted him. The house parents were amazing people with such grace and love for the girls. The girls proudly showed us their bedroom, 2 of these girls below were those who gave their testimony, their smiles today cover up a very sad past, but thankfully they now have freedom and hope.

Another project was run by a local church, for children who would be left alone all day because their parents were working on the local farms. The project volunteers and the pastor and his family provided them with help with homework, play, love and care. They had arranged a game of football for us this afternoon, Roger built up quite a sweat!

Finally we visited a huge project, a home for up to 400 children. This was on a huge site and had many buildings – schools, medical centre, library, workshops where the students learnt trades such as dressmaking, carpentry, baking. They have their own farm and try to grow most of their products. We met 2 children living there who Viva had recently rescued from the streets, and the team with us were keen to hear how these children were adapting to life in the home.

On the rubbish dump

We spent Monday with the Viva Early Encounter team, learning about what they do and experiencing some of it. The team told us about their work in several areas:

-          on the streets, building relationships with the kids, trying to persuade them that life is better off the streets

-          training the churches, to get them to reach out to the poor, to the street kids, to meet the needs that are on their doorsteps

-          working with school teachers, to train them in child protection issues, stuff that our UK teacher learn as part of their training, but is not taught in Latin America

-          developing the child ambassadors, the workshops that the children attend to build their self esteem and help them feel part of a community

-          advocacy and campaigning with local and national government

This Viva team is really committed to changing the world for street children and have a passion for what they do.

We then experienced some of their work first hand. We clambered into the minibus and headed off into the centre of the city, right next to the big market, onto the rubbish dump.  We picked our way over the stinking rubbish, past the stray dogs and saw the team from a local church who was working with the kids on the dump. I was surprised to see how young this team was, early twenties I would guess, they were singing songs and telling stories to the dirty kids in rags - no doubt clothes that they had found on the dump. They did some hand painting with the kids and each child made a bracelet to keep, telling the story of salvation with colours - Gods light (yellow), our sin (black), Jesus’s blood (red), new life (green), our baptism (blue), and then purity(white).  These kids had smiles on their faces as they joined in the fun. I looked around at the kids and wondered what the future would hold for them – would they escape this life, or remain part of this culture, with its drugs, gangs and abuse of all unthinkable kinds? At least this team were offering them a lifeline to a better existence. I pray that each of the children I saw today escapes from the squalor that we saw. I made a bracelet too, and I’ll pray often for the children I saw today.

We then headed off to a local school where the Viva team are working with the teachers, especially in the area of child abuse, what to look for and how to deal with it. These are teachers of 4-5 year olds who in this culture need to prepare the kids early for the dangers that they face. The lady from the Viva team uses puppets to get her messages across to the kids.

As a great finish to the day we had a party in the Viva office, with noisy Latin American games including a piñata, and real authentic tacos. A lighthearted ending to a day filled with challenging sights and stories.

Thought we'd share with you some of the things we've seen in Antigua

Craft market in front of ruins

Amazing to see the large loads they carry on their heads

Courtyard in the guest house where we are staying

Typical busy cobbled street, mountains shrouded by clouds

B

We've arrived in Guatemala!

Quite an eventful journey to Guatemala: All was going well on the flight to the USA (well – there had actually been 1 call for a doctor on board) until we hit some headwinds and encountered a lot of turbulence. Slowly on the flight monitors we saw our arrival time getting later… However, we were not worried as we had almost 3 hours to do the transfer in Houston. Then, on waking up from a little snooze I saw that our destination had changed to DFW – Dallas Fort Worth – on the monitors – it pays to keep an eye on those things!

After about 15 minutes the captain announced that because of poor weather in Houston we would need to circle around as our landing was uncertain. However, due to the strong winds we had encountered en route, we did not have enough fuel left to do that, so we needed to go to DFW to get some more fuel on board. This we duly did, and then headed off to Houston, into strong winds and poor weather. This gave a lot of turbulence on our flight, I began to feel quite queasy, and then we had an aborted landing. When we finally landed, it was very bumpy with an extremely sharp brake (and prayer too, I might add). This all meant that we were very late landing in Houston, and missed our connecting flight to Guatemala.

Never mind, I hear you saying, you’ll get put up by the airline overnight, well we didn’t, apparently it’s not their fault if you get delayed due to weather. We did sort out a room for the night, which turned out to be lovely, but we were too tired to really appreciate it. Back to the airport at 7am the next day to catch our flight to Guatemala.

My first impressions on coming into land were of a hilly country, with lots of vegetation and dried up rivers. It reminded me of Tuscany in some ways.

There were some other very interesting impressions on our first day too as we drove through Guatemala City to our hotel in Antigua:

-         the 2 young men on the pavement having a serious punch up after their cars had bumped (1 was a taxi)

-         the contrast between the old and the new, the rickety old red bus which passed us, you could see the through the panels which were falling off through rust, and on its rear there was the Facebook logo

-         the contrast between the rich and the poor – the brand new smart hotels right across the street from poorer neighbourhoods

In Antigua itself we have begun to get a feel for the vibrancy of the culture, the bright colours in the traditional clothing, the exhuberancy of the people, their friendliness. Inevitably we’ve been accosted by persistent jewellery sellers and surprised to see auto rickshaws here. We’ve also seen a wedding and a funeral and horses dancing in what seemed to be a political campaign parade.

And this is all in the first day!

Young Ambassadors Guatemala

This February, Toybox was involved in sending 2 schoolchildren from the UK to experience the work of Toybox in Guatemala and to be part of the Global Campaign for Education.

When Roger & I were at the Baptist Assembly in Blackpool at the beginning of this month, manning the Toybox stand, this short film of their visit was playing continously, giving us an idea of what we might expect to see in the next 10 days.

Take a look at the film too:
http://www.sendmyfriend.org/teach/films

Introduction to Guatemala

A country of striking features and a strong indigenous culture, Guatemala's natural beauty and powerful identity stand in stark contrast to its bloody past and troubled present.

In Guatemala, the richest 20% of the population own 60% of the overall wealth, leaving the poorest 20% of the population owning just 3%. In Guatemala two thirds of children live in poverty.

Many children in Guatemala have been orphaned by civil war and violence. Children are also abandoned by parents too poor to cope. Some are runaways from physical or sexual abuse within the family.

29% of children aged five to fourteen are involved in child labour and are being sent out to work in difficult and dangerous conditions. 63% of children complete primary school education, but there are high drop-out rates are due to poverty or the fact that these children have to work.  

On the streets of Guatemala children soon fall prey to violence, exploitation and disease. They are rejected by society and known as 'disposable'. They become victims of harassment and abuse. Many children seek to numb the pain and loneliness by turning to solvent abuse.

We are going to Guatemala to see the work of Toybox, whose mission is to bring lasting and positive change to the lives of street children, street working children and those at risk of becoming so, through front line work, prevention and advocacy. For more info on the work of Toybox see www.toybox.org.uk