We are happy to share with you our Fall 2021 Newsletter, highlighting our work around the world thanks to our sponsors and donors and their generosity and dedication in helping children in need. Enjoy!
Thanks to our sponsors and donors, we have been able to help them in their efforts to keep children and teachers safe and healthy.
Providing an Abundance of Support to our Projects in 2021
Around the world, our volunteer coordinators at nearly 300 affiliated projects continue to navigate how they can best support children in need through the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to our sponsors and donors, we have been able to help them in their efforts to keep children and teachers safe and healthy while they work hard to provide impoverished students with a well-rounded education — whether at home or in the classroom.
Although the last school year has been like no other in Children Incorporated’s history, we have continued to provide children in our program with the resources they need to overcome the obstacles they face during the global pandemic. It is with a great deal of gratitude that we thank each and every one of our supporters for their role in these efforts.
Offering Hygiene Items to Girls in Kenya
Our sponsors have provided thousands of children with school supplies this fall.
More recently, some of the most important items we have been able to offer to children in our program has been hygiene items — masks, soap and hand sanitizer – for them to take home and use in their daily lives to help prevent illness and protect children and their families against all kinds of disease, most specifically COVID-19. Additionally, when we consider the needs of our sponsored children, we especially need to consider the particular needs of young girls who might not have access to feminine hygiene products — most likely because their families can’t afford them. When young ladies don’t have access to sanitary napkins, they often skip school to stay home which can be detrimental to their education.
This year, we have focused on providing three-month supplies of sanitary napkins to all girls at our affiliated project, the Dandora Community Centre in Kenya, on a continuous basis so that they may remain in attendance at school throughout the year.
Supplying Vitamins During COVID-19 in Guatemala
Children in Guatemala are pictured with their vitamin supply
In the last months, thanks to a contribution by our partner, Altar’d State, to our COVID-19 Relief Fund, we were able to provide funds to the Juan Apostol School in Guatemala for a three-month supply of vitamins containing vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc for all 102 children enrolled in our program. And, because our volunteer coordinator was purchasing these items in bulk for the benefit of children, the local pharmacy provided a four-month supply of vitamins to our coordinator at the cost of just a three-month supply.
We are incredibly grateful for the support from Altar’d State, as well as for all contributions that donors have made to our COVID-19 Relief Fund.
A Blessing During the Pandemic in Lebanon
We recently received a letter from our volunteer coordinator at the Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf (FAID):
“A blessing came out of COVID-19. Several lockdowns reduced our face to face teaching time severely. So, we needed to find another way to help our children and their parents develop their educational skills. Our staff made several videos each week. Each video had a particular topic. The video “OPPOSITES,” for example, explained all about up and down, in and out, high and low, etc. These videos, made for WhatsApp, were easy for parents to use.
COVID-19 helped parents in Lebanon become teachers of their deaf children. Increased parental involvement enhanced building family bonds, which stimulated the children’s development even more, and most of all, reduced the emotional trauma that exists in families having children with special needs.
Providing audiology support, hearing aid maintenance and batteries during COVID is very challenging. Again, because of the help we received from Children Incorporated donors, we could put in the safeguards and precautions to make it possible. Thank you for all of your support in helping children at FAID.”
Supporting Agriculture in Bolivia
Throughout the year, our affiliated projects from around the world share with us proposals for special projects that will help improve the lives of not only the children that we support but their families as well. Thanks to our Hope In Action program, we are often able to support many of our projects so they can grow their programs and offer skills training and other important resources to impoverished communities in which we work.
We are incredibly grateful all contributions that donors have made to our COVID-19 Relief Fund.
One such proposal we received in 2021 was from the Montero School in Bolivia, in which our volunteer coordinator requested funds to construct an agriculture school on the same property as the existing school.
“This area is mainly an agricultural area, and many children and adults have to go to nearby cities, and even a few hours away to Santa Cruz to get better training,” explains our Director of International Programs, Luis Bourdet.
A sponsored child in Arizona poses with her new book bag thanks to our Back to School Program.
“With the support of this training institution that is being implemented, Children Incorporated is contributing to the whole community. The agricultural school will include a barn with cows, a pigpen, and a chicken coop in which students and their parents can learn how to take care of animals as well as grow food which they can then apply to their own lives to better their employment opportunities or income in the future!”
Time for Back to School Around the world
At the end of the summer this year, students at some of our affiliated projects returned to in-person learning for the first time since the spring of 2020. As our volunteer coordinators work hard to re-connect with these children as they see them on a regular basis for the first time in over 16 months, we are especially grateful that our sponsors have remained consistent in their lives during the difficulties they faced while being out of school and adjusting to a new life-style.
Welcome back to all the students who have returned to the classroom! We wish you a wonderful 2021-2022 school year!