What Does Safe Homes For Children Do

Someone requested to know what we do and how we do it. They made a good point; that alot of people do not know.
We work primarily in Guatemala. We own 17 acres of farmland there. On it we have a 2500 sq. ft. building that is used for our orphanage. It can house 64 children. We take street children as well as children whose parents can not afford to feed or clothe them. In addition to the orphanage, we work with the Mayan Indians around Lake Atitlan. There are 1. 5 million of them. So we will never run out of work. We offer a lunch program 3 days a week to the elementary school children next door. There are 75 of them. After lunch they study with a teacher we provide for 3 hours learning the basics. We also do student scholarships for children in the community who would not be able to go to school if we did not. We have a formula program for 30 starving infants and and an Incaparina program for 275 starving children. We have many more children that want and need to be on our feeding program, but we had to limit it because of finances. We just received almost $20,000.00 to build a clinic and we broke ground for it last Wedsnesday.
100% of all donations go to our programs. We take no money for administrative overhead, plane tickets or anything esle. Our family business has donated the bulk of our financial needs in the past. As we move forward , tho, we are having more and more groups and people help. We get many, many material donations each year from kind, generous peole. We have many people who support our student sponsorship programs and infant/child feeding programs. We are having more and more individual and group volunteers come and do work and donate money and bring many valualbe donations with them. We are having fundraisers that are bringing in enough money to build things like clinics. We are having medical teams and indiviual doctors donate their time for clinics run from our faclilties.
We love the work we do and will continue to increase and improve them as finances permit. we are a 501c3 non-profit which means we can give our donors a tax receipt for their donations. Thanks for everyone continued interest.
Vicki Dalia
20.vicki@gmail.com

Here are pictures of the house we have acquired for volunteer teams to stay in. We rent it for $20.00 a night per bed. This includes a simple breakfast and lunch up at our projects in Los Robles. It has 5 bedrooms and 6 baths plus an American style kitchen, dining room and living room. It also has a laundry room with washer and dryer. It is in a safe area of Panajachel and has a high courtyard fence all the way around. The yard is nice and the wrap around porch is wonderful. We stayed in it when we went to Guate two weeks ago and we loved it. It comes with a gardner . There is a maid you can hire to do clean up, cooking and laundry. If you want to book it for your team or your family when you are here doing volunteer work for our projects, let me know as it is becoming popular.
I also figured out how people that are on a budget could pay for their airline tickets. We found a wonderful and skilled dentist who charges $25.00 for an adult cleaning and $12.00 for a childs. He charged $12.00 each to fill the 3 cavities that two of my children had. My husband had a crown done for $30.00. He was as good as our USA dnetist.
We still need sponsors for our formula/incaparina program.
We still have not found Fernanda. Please pray [ or your spiritual equivalent ] that she is found soon and comes back into our safe keeping.
Bill T., I hope you don't mind, but I switched your student sponsorship from Fernanda to Brenda. Many of you will remember Brenda. She was the young teenage girl who was at our orphanage . She looked like a gringa. She has been released from the government orphanage and is living with her mother and younger sisters in very poor circumstances. They could not afford to send her to school and since she is such a good and dedicated student, I thought you would be okay with her getting your student sponsorship. If we find Fernanda, then I will find one for her. Brenda's house is made on corn stalks and has a dirt floor. Next year all 3 girls will probably come live with us. The mom has a bad growth on her shoulder that is so large she can not lift her arm. We are trying to figure out how to get her medical care.
I have attached a couple of pictures of Fernanda. The first is of her the day Pedro brought her out to our facilities the first of Oct. We were having a party for Children's day. She asked me if she could come back to live with us as her father was abusvie to her. I said as soon as I have our opening papers in hand [ supposed to get those on Weds. ] The second is of her hugging Eva who was one of our nannies when Fernanda lived with us. The third is of the two of them talking. Eva, whose 4 year old has cancer , is the maid, cook and laundry person at our volunteer house. Anyway, Fernanda went back to her dad's house and he beat her so badly, she had to be hospitalized for a week. She ran away from the nospital to the streets.
Vicki
Director of http://www.safehomesforc.hildren.org



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Guate Realty

Date: Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: bed and breakfast house for rent in Pana

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Giving out formula and milk

Our trip to Guatemala was very interesting. The Sat. after we arrived we had a milk distribution where we invited families from two pueblos. To receive milk or formula they had to have an income of less than $2.50 a day. Food costs more in Guatemala than in the states even if they only make $2.50 a day.We made a list of the children we distributed to. The total from Sat. and the ones who staggered in thru the next week was 275 children for incaparina and 30 infants for formula. Sat. we had over 300 women and children. One of our major donors for the formula/incaparina program was visiting the country and we wanted them to see where their money was going. They bought oranges and rolls to give out to the people who came and all the people there ate them like they were not getting much to eat at home.
Incaparina is a mix of soy and corn and a little sweetner. The kids drink it and it is very nutritious. We are giving a bag of incaparina twice a month to each child in the family. This gives them 1.5 cups a day for the whole month. The infants get a large can of formula. The program costs $550.00 for the incaparina monthly and $600.00 for the formula monthly. We don't have that much in our budget so we need donors to keep the program going. It is the only thing of nutrition the kids get. Usually they have a couple of tortillas and if lucky some beans.
We have had to cut off the numbers we can help as we are having Mayans from other pueblos coming to us for formula or incaparina. Until we get enough donors to satisfy the first 275 kids, we can't add more.

DO YOU WANT TO HELP WITH THIS PROGRAM/ FOR $20.00 a month you can give an infant a large can of formula. For $20.00 a month you can give 10 children incaparina for a month. HELP US TO KEEP THIS PROGRAM GOING AND TO BE ABLE TO ADD MORE CHILDREN. Write me at 20.vicki@gmail.com if you want to help.