Carolina Cross Connection and Pulhapanzap Visit
Also this year, a group from the organisation Carolina Cross Connection visited us for a week. They painted a girl's room and a boy's room and played a lot with our children.
The highlight was the long-awaited 3-day weekend camp in Peña Blanca. The disappointment of the children was enormous when they learned on the first evening that some of the Americans had tested positive for the corona virus and therefore the camp had to end early on Saturday morning. To ease the disappointment, our children were allowed to spend Saturday at the famous Pulhapanzap waterfall instead of having to go back home directly after breakfast.
Equal Rights Day
Equality Day is celebrated on 8 July. Our children had the opportunity to participate in a cultural event on the occasion of this day. The aim was to promote non-violence and equality as well as the prevention of gender-based violence. Photo exhibitions, parades and artistic interventions were organised for this purpose.
Our children showed great interest and they became aware of how little equality is respected here in Honduras and around the world.
Superhero Employees
Superheroes don't only exist in Hollywood movies. Here at the children's home "Yo quiero ser..." we also have them. Here you won't find them in the form of Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman, here they are our employees. Many of them often display almost superhuman abilities, protecting the children and fighting evil. They typically have great courage and a noble character. So they are superheroes through and through.
To make everyday home life work, we need our superheroes. In our home they are 2 cooks, 7 educators, 1 psychologist, 1 teacher, 1 cleaner, 1 laundress, 2 guards, 1 chauffeur, 1 lawyer and 1 children's home director.
Our children wrote personal thank you cards for their superheroes and imitated the staff in a theatre play. The staff had to work out which person was being portrayed. That was very entertaining and when the little ones imitated the typical quirks of the staff, everyone had to laugh out loud.
The "Yo quiero ser..." family spent an unforgettable afternoon, which also included thank-you gifts.
Swiss Representation in Honduras
For a school project, the secondary school students had to represent a country in groups. Our 5 students Angie, Mayte, Alden, Brayan and Elvin chose Switzerland. They compiled information and pictures from the internet and collected Swiss things in the whole home. With the items they found, they presented Switzerland very well on the day of the exhibition. They took the children's books Schellenursli and Lili and presented a baking book with Guetzli (swiss cookies) recipes. They also had floorball sticks with a ball with them as well as a swiss army knife, various souvenirs and typical teddy bears on display. The highlights were definitely the homemade plait with Nutella, the original Gerber fondue, salami and Ricola bonbons, but the secret star was Elvin. He got a big applause for his serenade on the accordion.
With great joy and pride, they accepted the prize for 1st place and said afterwards that they had obviously become little Swiss thanks to the Swiss donations.
Arrival of the Containers
The extraordinarily high transport costs currently prevent us from delivering the donated items from Switzerland to Honduras. Nevertheless, we were able to ship a container this spring. It arrived more 2 months late, but the joy of the children was overwhelming when the container finally arrived at our home.
The Foundation had bought the container and Helmut Zurbuchen had converted it into a storage room. The container was placed between the back of the staff house and the outside wall and now serves as a storage room. All the boxes with our clothes, shoes, bed linen, towels and pampers were transferred there so that the previous storage space can now be reused. This large, vacated space in the main building is now being converted into two bedrooms.
All the donated desks and chairs were sent to Santa Rosa de Copan to be distributed to poor schools.
«Yo quiero ser…»-Children's Wishes
Our home and foundation name "Yo quiero ser..." means I want to become, or I want to be.
The psychologist looked at this theme with the children during one week. Each child chose their desired profession and had to gather information about it on their own. Afterwards, they all had to dress up as grown-ups and present their desired occupation so that they could identify themselves with the chosen occupation.
Wendy wants to be a doctor so that she can help sick people. Elvin a biologist because he is fascinated by animals. Yeslin wants to manage a company as a commercial employee. Alden wants to be an engineer so he can build houses and buildings. Mayte wants to be a lawyer so she can fight for children's rights. Pablo wants to be a pilot so he can fly around the world. And Keila a paediatrician to save the lives of sick children.
Thanks to the generous donation from Switzerland, our children are given the opportunity to realise their dreams. They have to work diligently at school, always do their best, believe in themselves and their dreams, and work hard to achieve them.
Children's Day on 10 September
Our children are appreciated and loved by many people. This was reflected by the numerous groups of visitors around the Children's Day. On 10 September, we were invited to participate in a special event together with three other children's homes in a beautiful park. We took advantage of the wonderful setting to take lovely group and individual photos of the children. In the afternoon we went to the theatre to see the show "Sara y los Títeres de la mano con los valores". It was a long, eventful day.
Various companies visited us on this occasion. Among others, a laboratory, the real estate company Padull, the children's shop K&B, the organisation ROOM, the consul of Taiwan and the church group San Vicente de Paul. Most of the groups organised games, brought food and distributed gifts to the children.
This year, our children were lucky enough to celebrate this year's Children's Day during almost two weeks.
Joya Grande Zoo Visit
As soon as we planned the trip to the zoo, the children's faces lit up like light bulbs. Nothing delights them more than watching animals at the zoo. For us, this trip to the zoo was a perfect opportunity to bond with the children and spend time together as a "Yo quiero ser..." family. For the youngest ones, it was the first time in their lives that they could observe wild animals up close. Even 9-year-old Pablo said he had thought that lions, cheetahs, tigers, giraffes, hippos and ostriches only existed in children's books.
Everyone really enjoyed the tour of the zoo and was positively impressed. After lunch, they enjoyed the cool water of the swimming pools and thus savored a wonderful day until the last moment.
Lunch for evacuees
When Hurricane Ian was announced this September, it was déjà vu from 2020, when both Hurricanes Eta and Iota passed over Honduras and caused great destruction. At first, Ian approached Honduras on the same route, but then - thankfully - it took a different direction. In the end, only a few hundred people had to leave their homes due to flooding. One of the affected communities was Flor del Occidente, which we had already visited and supported two years ago. Therefore, the cry for help was heard by us and we bought a nutritious lunch (arroz chino) and donuts for more than 250 people. We also distributed pampers and powdered milk. We realised that we are now almost professionals in distributing and we are absolutely lucky to be the ones who can give and fortunately not to be in their situation.
And finally, I would like to tell you that our children, after more than two years of virtual classroom, are finally allowed to go back to school.