Aliro Ruiz, a good friend of our Director Gaby Andrade and a professor in the Liberator Pedagogical Experimental University, approached us with the idea that university students needing to meet a public service requirement could work for the Help and Hope Center to meet the requirement. This summer we conducted an Early Reading and Writing program at our Center and in six local churches. Each day 18 college students taught 150 poor children to read and write at the seven locations giving them a tremendous head start for the upcoming school year. It gets better. The university liked the program so much that they want to continue the program all year. So, this October 24 college students will be involved in the program. We are soliciting more churches now.
Each day these college students, not all Christians, interacted not only with their poor students but also with the Christians running the program. They listened as the children were provided Bible study as part of the program. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of many of them during this time.
Our goal for early next year is to have an early reading and writing program in twenty churches. Once we have a presence in these churches our next step is to transition them into fully operational and funded Help and Hope Centers.
An influential gentleman has been working with us as we consider the possibility of operating a Christian school in Rubio. He has grown to love the work of Andean Aid and our civil association Una Sonrisa Para Todos (A Smile For All). In fact he wants a Help and Hope Center established in his village church. It’s good to have friends in high places but I doubted that a this tiny village could meet our standard of serving thirty children each day. I was astonished when 35 to 40 children came to our program each day. This gentleman has suggested that Una Sonrisa Para Todos is the best association in meeting the needs of poor children in all of Venezuela! We are the only association to have such an arrangement with the university. This is a big kudos for our work.
So, this is much more than a win-win story. The students win by meeting an obligation for their education, the university wins by having an option for their students, the churches win by being able to offer an immediate and tangible benefit to their communities, Andean Aid / Una Sonrisa Para Todos wins by getting teachers at no cost and being able to witness to them, and most importantly the poor children win. They get to go to school fully prepared to succeed knowing that someone cares about them and their future.
Please pray as we expand our reach in Venezuela and Colombia – and someday beyond. May other important people cross our path and become friends. We feel blessed that we can have such an impact in what can be a difficult country for a non-profit to gain a foothold. Only God could have worked this out and we are very thankful.
The summer reading and writing program was a huge success. Eighteen student teachers taught one hundred and fifty children to read and write each day in seven locations. All involved are very pleased with the outcome. The college students were able to meet their community service obligation ans Andean Aid / Una Sonrisa Para Todos gained valuable help in serving poor children. The university wants this to be a year round program and will provide us with twenty four students in October. Our goal is to provide the program in twenty community church locations by early next year reaching over five hundred children. Our goal is to convert these twenty churches where we will have a presence into fully funded Help and Hope Centers offering the children a full range of developmental services.
While conducting the reading and writing program at the church in Santa Rita it came to our attention that a family with three children was living in a gallinero (chicken coop). This family had a small patch of land and was attempting to construct a basic block home there. The father had done some work on the land but needed materials. Andean Aid provided the materials to complete the house and our staff along with the congregation of the church at Santa Rita will help in completing construction. This is an example of how Andean Aid must balance providing opportunity with relieving misery. Can you imagine these children thriving in school and doing homework in a chicken coop?
The early reading program is now serving over 120 children each day in seven locations near Rubio, Venezuela. At the small village of Santa Rita, a new location for us, over 30 children take advantage of the program. It is so successful that the university would like to extend it to a year round program.
The university in Rubio has asked if we can use eighteen students to help out over the summer to complete their community service requirement. Each student will work 120 hours for our Help and Hope Center. Of course we said yes. Today these students begin serving in the following churches: Faimilia de Dios in La Victoria, Palmita, Bramon, Santa Rita, Poblado and Villa Bahareque. The students will also work at our Rubio help and Hope Center location. The students will provide a reading and writing clinic for poor children in these locations under the supervision of our staff. The church congregations also have the opportunity to show the love of Christ to these children all summer. A large turnout is expected.
It’s been a dream of mine for some time to provide an early reading and writing intervention for these children. A child that can’t read at ten or eleven years old has a huge problem catching up with his class and is a big drain on our resources when they show up at the Help and Hope Center. My hope is that this becomes a continuing program and provides poor children a big head start in school and success.
I’m astonished at how well the book is going. No title yet but adding several ideas to the list. Currently I’m at 13,500 word which equates to about 45 book pages. It’s exciting reliving some of the events that shaped my life during the past ten years. The original idea was that the book would be a good way to promote Andean Aid and get my foot in the door to present our ministry to potential supporters. As it takes shape though I see that it will be far more than a big brochure for our organization.
The restaurant is coming together. Our cook is renown for her Venezuela and Colombian cuisine. The format is self serve which is a fairly new concept there. Some menu items will be paisa, pabellon, pollo guisado and carene guisado. Hungry yet? Good. Come on down and I’ll save you a seat.
The board of directors of Andean Aid has issued a challenge to me to complete a book by the end of the year detailing my experience of leaving industry to serve as a missionary ans subsequently forming Andean Aid. I’ve had an outline for some time now and have begun plowing into the first chapter. Those of you that know me – pray for me. I’m easily distracted so pray for perseverance and persistence. I’m hoping that putting this out there in a most public way will keep me on track. I may be contacting some of you for clarification of certain events. So, off I go, quill in hand.
I’m attending the Head Start national conference inDallas, Texas. It’s a great conference and a side benefit is that the information I receive is very pertinent to improving Andean Aid and our Help and Hope Centers. I return on Monday for surgery but should be up to speed by Tuesday. Wishful thinking? I hope not. Anyway, as soon as possible I’ll ber back to making blog posts about our exciting work in the Andes. Please pray for our director Gaby Andrade who contracted dengue fever this week. I’ve experienced this and it is not pleasant. More unpleasant while raising a baby I imagine.
Last week Bladimir Gomez Ramirez turned twenty-one years old. I’m racking my brain trying to remember exactly when I first met him. I recall the event vividly. I just can’t remember the date. It had to be during my trip to Rubio in 2003 or 2004. Anyway, Bladimir had to be thirteen or fourteen at the time. Gaby Andrade, her fiancé Rubén and I visited Rubén’s aunt in the La Palmita district of the city. During our visit in the open central court of the home Bladimir appeared. His disfigured face was startling. The left side of his face was huge and deformed and I have to admit now that I was taken aback. When he spoke though, it was apparent that he was a bright young man. Who could imagine then how our lives would cross.
You can imagine Bladimir’s life as a young boy carrying this burden. He had endured several operations in Venezuela to treat the condition and nothing more could be done there. The Help and Hope Center was a place of refuge for him. It was a place that he could just be another kid.
In 2005 we were asked if any organization in the United States would help Bladimir. Tom Colandrea, a friend and Andean Aid supporter took the lead in finding help. Initially all we received were rejections.
In August 2006 Andean Aid teamed with International Kids Fund in Miami, Florida to bring Bladimir to the United States for treatment. Andean Aid provided all transportation, visas and passports for both Bladimir and his mother Aydee Ramirez Ballesteros. He had been separated from his mother since age two but he needed a guardian to travel to the United States. Also, his mother is Colombian and could not travel from Caracas. So, Andean Aid arranged for Bladimir’s dual citizenship and he came to this country under a Colombian passport. This arduous process took eight months and many miracles. Bladimir and Aydee arrived in Miami on April 6, 2007.
International Kids fund provided all medical treatment at the Holtz Children’s Hospital and the Bascom Palmer Eye institute at the University of Florida Medical School. Dr. Jesus Gomez, a renowned maxillofacial surgeon performed the treatment. Dr. Gomez’s original estimate for the extensive reconstruction was three surgeries over six months. This turned into seven surgeries over two years. Ronald McDonald House became their home away from home.
Bladimir returned home to Rubio, Venezuela on October 13, 2009. Today he enjoys sports, especially soccer, plays music and works at the control panel of a radio station affiliated with Andean Aid. He has many friends and participates in Vida Joven routinely. The transformation in this young man’s life has been miraculous.
Well, I contacted TOM’S shoes to see what the requirements were to be a shoe drop point figuring that perhaps we could meet the needs of the kids attending our Help and Hope Centers. Wouldn’t it be great to meet the needs of a few hundred or a thousand kids? My jaw dropped when I found out the minimum commitment an organization can make is to distribute 17,000 pairs of shoes! Every six months! To the same kids!
Now, I respect what TOM’S Shoes is doing to meet the needs of poor children. And I understand that it’s wise to keep the same kids in a pair of shoes as they grow. But 17,000? Every six months. A participating organization also has to keep records and provide stories of how the shoes are positively impacting the child’s life. All this is good.
My question is, what organization that has its’ own mission to carry out has the surplus resources to create a system to distribute 17,000 pairs of shoes every six months? And remember, 17,000 pairs is the minimum requirement. If we were to create such a system our kids would not be receiving help with their studies at the Help and Hope Centers. They would be getting shoes period.
The ads for TOM’S on television show a company representative going into a village, getting hugs, and giving away shoes. What the ads don’t say is that more than a hundred such villages would have to be visited each six months.
So, we at Andean Aid will continue to provide a superior place for young minds to grow and develop. We will stay out of the shoe business.
