Newsletter May 2020

Taxi and bus drivers declare an emergency

The taxi drivers and bus drivers have already organised several days of protest to demand the reactivation of their services. They declare that they are in an acute emergency situation. For several weeks they have had no income and cannot feed their families. Therefore, they want to return to work to secure their income and to be able to meet their basic needs.

In San Pedro Sula there are 5'200 legal taxis. In the whole country there are even more than 23’000, with the number of illegal taxis being more than three times as high.

One of the main causes for the spread of the new corona virus is public transportation. Taxis and buses are always filled to the last millimetre. A distance of 1.5 metres between passengers cannot be maintained.

These issues will cause great headaches for the authorities and the state in the coming weeks, because until economic activities resume, they will have to find a sensible solution that meets all safety regulations in addition to the needs of the drivers and their families.

School Education

Our projects in Santa Rosa de Copán also had to be "interrupted" due to the corona virus, as all schools, training centres and universities have been closed since mid-March. We are also not allowed to hold courses and the young people of La Entrada were sent home.

Here in the city of San Pedro Sula, classes are held via video conferencing platform Zoom or homework is directly sent by the teachers via Whatsapp or e-mail. But what happens in the more rural areas? Most of them do not have internet access or telephone reception, so this is not possible in the countryside and the children have not had any lessons for 3 months.

But even here in the city it is difficult for many parents. They now have to take over the role of teachers, whereby some of them have great difficulty and cannot really read and write. They also have to buy internet data packets every day in order to receive their homework and then do it. Furthermore, only very few families have access to a printer.

The situation is further aggravated by the fact that many people were unable to work during this time and therefore did not receive a salary, but the schools continued to demand their monthly fees because they still had to pay the teachers.

Quarantene Perio in the Childrens Home

I wanted to know the opinion of our children, how they feel about this quarantine period and therefore conducted a small survey. 72% of all children interviewed felt it was a long time, 20% felt it was normal and 8% felt it was a short time.

What they missed most were the trips we always take, the visits from family members and groups, being allowed to go to school, the schoolmates and the teachers.

What they enjoyed most was the time spent together with the "Yo Quiero Ser..." family, the daily meditations, playing, swimming in the pools, the fine food, sleeping, watching TV and the virtual school lessons.

What do the children want to do when the curfew is lifted?

The wish list contained the following: a day at the Zizima water park, hiking in the Panacam cloud forest, eating pizza and ice cream, trip to the Coca-Cola mountain, the Lago de Yojoa, the sea and visiting a shopping center.

Mother’s Day

Since we still have a strict curfew, no mothers were allowed to visit their children in the home. Although even during the year only about 5 mothers come to visit their children regularly. Therefore, our older girls prepared wall decorations and photo shows on TV for all the mothers working in the home.

Instead of a lunch, we set up a barbecue and enjoyed a fine dessert in the open air and in great company. Our girls used this day to do a photo shoot. Afterwards we danced and everyone enjoyed themselves.

New Children

For some years now, our foundation has also been supporting social projects. One of them is in the medical field. In this context we have also supported Brenda Paola for several months, who was in a public hospital for 18 months. She was shot by her mother's partner and since this accident she has been paraplegic. During her stay in the hospital she underwent 23 surgeries and her pregnant mother, who accompanied her to the hospital, suffered pregnancy poisoning and passed away. From then on, fourteen-year-old Brenda was left on her own. The state organization DINAF has taken care of her ever since, but has no budget for the expensive medical bills. For this reason we always bought her the necessary medication and daily consumables such as shampoo, toothpaste, clothes, etc.

When she was finally allowed to leave the hospital bed, she was meant to go live with a foster family. However, as a temporary emergency solution, the state organization asked us to take Brenda in for a few days until they found a suitable place for her. These few days have now turned into 3 months and counting...

Also the two-year-old Sara came allegedly only for one night and has been with us for over 4 months now. In the beginning she was very shy, fearful and cried a lot, which most likely  has something to do with the fact that she was sold to strangers by her biological mother.

In the meantime she has settled in very well in the Sala Cuna and can also laugh, be happy and accept life as a beautiful gift...