Archive for April, 2008
Bob’s report: Visit to Costa Rica
Mission Awareness Trip
March 29—April 5, 2008
Words of welcome by Coordinator Minor Esquivel
“We have been looking forward to this moment. The children, the aging and the CFCA staff have been praying for you. We thank God for bringing you safely to our country to visit your CFCA family.”
The Risen Christ
First on the agenda was Holy Mass at El Poro section of San Ramon in the Chapel of San Antonio de Padua. Father Chepe, a native of Panama, has shoulder-length hair and could easily pass as a San Blas or Guatuso Indian. He took the readings from the Acts and St. Peter and handily brought us all into the Costa Rican reality of March 30, 2008. CFCA community promoters in the San Ramon subproject report that 350-400 children, youth and aging, and expectant mothers are able to have a good lunch each school day.
Sacred encounter
For me, a very sacred encounter took place between sponsor Julie Pringle, one of her seven children, Quincy, their sponsored boy, Yarito, and Yarito’s mother, Elba. Elba was born dirt poor in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, and struggled with an abusive husband. One morning, she sent her four children in the back of a neighbor’s pickup to haul drinking water. The irresponsible driver rolled the truck on a dirt road at high speed. Elba’s 13-year-old daughter, Miriam, died on impact. The other four were hurt, including Yarito. The family somehow made it past the ever-present border guards, and headed for the Central Valley of Costa Rica and San Ramon. Today, Divine Mercy Sunday, the mothers Julie and Elba hit if off. Quincy and Yarito hit it off. One could read it in their eyes. Somehow in God’s mercy, the circle was complete… and the Mass was just beginning.
Survival in the most challenging of environments
CFCA is involved in very challenging section of Heredia called Guarari. This is considered a high-risk community because of the high levels of robbery, drug dealing, assaults, sexual abuse, domestic violence, family disintegration, school dropouts and unemployment.
In our visits to sponsored families, I note that the area is intolerably polluted by the black waters of a huge shopping mall located three or four blocks upstream. It would be an understatement to say that the families are struggling. Most of them are immigrants from Nicaragua, forced to try to survive under extremely difficult conditions.
Ribbon cutting
After a bone-chilling bus ride north, we dedicated a nice new classroom in El Pavon. This fine structure was made possible through the dedication of 9-year-old sponsor Emily and her parents, Dawn and Ed. Emily cut the ribbon to the new building with one of their sponsored children, Daniela. How beautiful to see the bonding between these two young girls. Trip participants were impacted by the difference between this nice new facility and the former make-do classroom. According to CFCA staff, the Los Chiles area near the Nicaraguan border has been seriously neglected. Our visits to homes here speak of extreme poverty. Work harvesting oranges, pineapple or sugarcane lasts scarcely four months.
Back in San Jose
We spent the day at a nice park with the sponsored children, parents, staff and U.S. student volunteer translators, mixing games, music, dancing, good food and a beautiful blue sky.
What a joy to see our own sponsored little girl, 4-year-old Cristina (Cri Cri), and to see her walking. Three years ago, doctors said she would probably not survive six months. Cristina and I sponsored her anyway. With God’s grace and the loving care of the Sisters, this little fighter is defying all the odds.
Dancing in the streets
Hundreds of people received us in the street of this challenging neighborhood. Vicenta, at age 32, has seen a lot of life—two boys, one little girl and a husband long gone. They’re literally dirt poor in a drainage area where things stay humid. Very early each morning, Vicenta climbs the embankment with her baskets and treks to market to buy vegetables for resale in the neighborhood. During coffee harvest, she and the children travel to one of the farms after school to pick coffee.
Following the family visits, we gathered at the CFCA center in Alajuelita to see handicrafts and foods produced by the mothers and elderly, and in the presence of the sponsored elderly Queen and King of the fiesta, we accompanied the elderly, the children and youth in dancing. My one step fits all.
We live in gratitude
Thank you for being with us on this journey. We live in gratitude for your solidarity and prayers.
Bob Hentzen
CFCA Costa Rica
2 comments April 29, 2008
World Malaria Day
Today is World Malaria Day. Malaria isn’t something we think about much in the U.S., but its devastating effects are still felt around the world.
Malaria afflicts 350 to 500 million people a year – 40 percent of the world’s population.
Malaria is preventable and curable. If not treated, though, it can be deadly. It kills more than a million people a year – mostly young children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest hit area, but malaria also afflicts Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and even parts of Europe.
CFCA projects in malaria-affected areas are working to help families deal with this threat. The easiest way to prevent malaria is by sleeping under treated bed nets, because the mosquitoes that carry malaria most often bite at night. Unfortunately, although bed nets are not expensive by U.S. standards, most families in malaria-affected areas can’t afford them.
Project Coordinator Mary Dawn Reavey, based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, wrote to us this week about malaria prevention in her community:
Medicated bed nets have been a sponsorship benefit at the CFCA Dar es Salaam project that families can choose from the personalized portion of their sponsorship plan since January 2005. Starting in 2008, every sponsored child receives a medicated bed net as part of his/her health benefit. Also part of the health benefit is malaria testing and treatment. Beginning in February of this year (which is the start of the long rainy season in Dar es Salaam), the project began providing education to sponsored families on the treatment of malaria to coincide with the distribution of mosquito nets to all currently sponsored children. We also have some children with chronic illnesses (e.g. sickle cell anemia, AIDS and severe cerebral palsy) on antimalarial prophylaxis.
Drug-resistant malaria is a huge problem because to most Tanzanian families every illness is “malaria” (any cold, flu, virus, ear infection, abdominal pain, headache, etc. is thought to be “malaria”). The cost of testing is much higher than the medication (40 to 80 cents to test versus 4 cents per tablet – dosage is based on weight so most kids only need ½ to 1½ tablets). Family members are able to go into any pharmacy and buy malaria treatment medication without a prescription, so they typically don’t test and instead treat for malaria with any symptom.
CFCA’s BON subproject is located in western Kenya, near Lake Victoria, one of Kenya’s malaria corridors. They wrote to tell us about how they’re fighting this threat, too:
Malaria is prevalent during the rainy season because the mosquitoes tend to multiply during these cold periods. It is transmitted by the female anopheles mosquito, and can be prevented by spraying insecticides, sleeping under treated mosquito nets and draining away stagnant water. It can also be prevented by keeping our home environments clean by clearing all the bushes around our houses and destroying or burning waste containers around our homes since these are breeding places for mosquitoes.
In the fight against malaria, Nairobi-BON subproject always does the following for our beneficiaries:
1. Provide treated mosquito nets at least once a year and ensure that sponsored children and aging sleep under their nets.
2. Create awareness of the dangers of malaria and employ preventive measures like the ones mentioned above.
3. Emphasize the importance of proper hygiene and sanitation.
It is good that these efforts have helped prevent malaria in our beneficiaries since we do not experience many cases of malaria.
On behalf of the CFCA beneficiaries, BON subproject is grateful to CFCA for joining in the fight against this killer disease.
Sponsorship in malaria-affected areas not only allows children to receive bed nets for prevention and quality medical care for treatment if they contract malaria, it also allows families to eat a more nutritious diet. This strengthens their immune system and improves their reaction to medicines. Sponsored children are also able to go to school and learn about the causes and effects of malaria.
This is a great example of how holistic child development, through sponsorship, improves a child’s life in so many ways. Every aspect of their life and sponsorship – food, shelter, education, medical treatment – works together to give them hope and an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.
Add comment April 25, 2008
Celebrating Earth Day
You may have read the story about children in Guatemala protecting their environment in the April Update. If you didn’t read it, here’s a quick synopsis.
There is a neighborhood that borders the CFCA center in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. The children from the neighborhood wanted to play at the CFCA Center, but they weren’t allowed (out of concern for their safety if they played unattended). Three CFCA finance staff members wanted to help the children find a way they could play at the center, so they organized an environmental club.
The environmental club, comprising children from the bordering neighborhood, meets twice a week to pick up litter from the area and recycle it. Then, their bag of trash is their “admission ticket” to play basketball, soccer or educational games at the center. They’re also served a snack. Omar, Sergio and Victor, the organizing staff members, volunteer their time to be with the children during club activities.
Now the children are also planting vegetables in a garden at the CFCA center, supplementing their family’s diet and learning organic growing techniques.
Here at CFCA headquarters in Kansas City, we were inspired by the children in Guatemala who are making their community a better, cleaner place to live.
So, today – on Earth Day – we decided to live by their example. After our weekly all-staff meeting, interested employees walked around the neighborhood where our office is located and picked up litter.
It was a great addition to other earth friendly practices we have in place at CFCA. And, it was an opportunity to live in solidarity with our friends and fellow staff members in Guatemala.
The children in Guatemala are leading the way … and we’re following.
Add comment April 22, 2008
Letter from Kenya
We received this letter recently written by a sponsored child who lives near Nairobi, Kenya, to her sponsor in the U.S. We were touched by her first-hand descriptions of how the recent violence in Kenya has affected her. We’re withholding her name to protect her security in the still-volatile nation. If you’d like to read more about the unrest in Kenya and how it affected sponsored members, we’ve written several news stories here.
17 March, 2008
Dear Joe,
How have you been? Well, I hope it has been well with you. How was your Christmas and more how is your new year going? For me I am happy now that the violence has ceased and that am in my last year in high school.
I spent my Christmas very well since the election hadn’t taken place but ever since 28th (of December) it was very bad. You know we live in a place like 80 kilometers from the capital city Nairobi … where when people learned that President Kibaki had won they celebrated because the majority are the tribe of Kikuyus, so all my Luo friends were evacuated back to their ancestral home.
We had lived with them all my life only to be separated like long-time enemies. As the violence continued we were even told not to wear specific clothes like trousers. Although I am Kikuyu, I used to go to the police station where almost like 5,000 people had camped since they neither had a home nor money to take them back to their rural homes.
I remember I didn’t celebrate the new year as I am used to but I had to stay indoors. If you were to be seen straying after 7 p.m. (that was the curfew time), you could have been killed by either the police or a vigilante group called Mungikis.
Properties were looted and burned in various places and at night a person could hear gunshots next to your house. Things got out of hand and the Mungikis claimed that my mother was a supporter of the opposition that is the party of Raila Odinga so she was brought home by policemen.
Thank you very much for the lunch you sponsored for us last year. It was very nice. Our photos were taken and we were given clothes. It was really thrilling because we didn’t expect it.
All in all, even after the post-election violence, we came back to school, though a little bit late, but it doesn’t matter so long as we finish school. I really am in a dilemma between doing telecommunications engineering and doing designing (graphic or Web).
I hope your daughter is progressing on well. I really wish that the people of U.S.A. will choose a president fairly and hence no violence will take place.
Since I am one of the biggest supporters of Manchester United, I really felt bad when they were defeated by Arsenal in the FA cup. (It’s rather odd for a girl to like football in Kenya but nothing is ever odd to me).
I pray and hope that your job is progressing well.
In school this year there was a celebration due to the good performance of last year’s candidates, and so our hopes are hoisted high that we as the current candidates will pass come the examinations.
Right now Kenya is going back to her usual doings but for me life will never be the same. The wound will take long to heal. Thank you for your support and everything you have done for me. I wish you a happy Easter holiday.
Your sponsored child,
(Name withheld)
Add comment April 16, 2008
