Casa de Sion

Our intern out at the Lake and our director there met with the judge and social worker at Solola and told them about the new program we are starting where we take malnourished infants and babies and nurse them back to health. These do not have to be orphans. They were very excited about the program and are going to start keeping their eyes open for children who need these services. Also the mama of Manuel's sib group [ we already are housing and schooling the four oldest sibs ] is considering letting her 3 youngest, [ 3,1, and newborn] come into the program as they are very malnourished. We are thinking we will hire Jacinta [ the mama] to be one of the nannies for the program. That way she can be with her babies and also earn a little.
I NEED PEOPLE TO SPONSOR THIS PROGRAM. TO START OUT I NEED $100.00 a month for Jacinta's salary [ she will board with us ] and $100.00 a month for formula. No amount of money is too small. $10.00 a month by 20 people will get us going.There is much need here.
My daughter Sarah , who is the director of the Guatemala program, just came home from a vacation with her husband's people. They went to South Africa for 2 weeks. While there she visited a daycare set up in a really poor village. I felt prompted the last time we were in Guate to set up a daycare in the really poor village the orphanage is in. We have the facilities so would just need to hire the staff and pay for the extra food. Right now the Guate mamas have to decide between working [ for a $1.00 a day ] and thus being able to afford to give their children beans and tortillas or not working and not feeding the kids. The problem is when they work they leave their toddlers locked in their shanties all day. A daycare would free the mamas to work and not have to worry about the kids. The daycare inAfrica was setup for this reason. They have 200 children from infants to 6 years of age. An added benefit is the kids would get 3 meals a day, very unusual in this pueblo.
We are splitting the services of a security guard with the hospitalito in Santiago. My intern met with them on Sat. The hospitalito is run by volunteer doctors from all over the world. Some very famous. I had my intern ask them about doing a free clinic on the orphanage grounds once a month for the pueblo of Cerro de Oro that we are located in. They were very excited about the idea. I hope it works out as many of the people in this pueblo are too poor to be able to afford the 3Qs [ about $.40 cents ] that is takes to take the pickup to the free clinics in other bigger cities. Not to mention being able to afford the meds they need.
Thank you everyone for any help you are giving us. One agency in the NW has collected 55 bookbags for the kids and will be delivering them in Oct. A father and son team are going down this month to put in organic gardens that will enable us to be much more self-sufficient. A family that adopted from Guate 18 years ago is down there now and took many needed donations with them. This is what enables us to stay open.
Vicki Dalia
Director of http://www.safehomesforchildren.org