Tag Archives: children

Shelley Callahan | October 30, 2023En Español

Our visit to the Montero School came to an end by late morning, around 11 a.m., when our sponsored children slowly started to trickle out of the school’s compound, heading home to enjoy the rest of their Saturday with their families.

After a quick lunch of traditional Bolivian foods, including the amazing Pique a lo Macho, our Director of International Programs, Luis Bourdet, and I made our way to the driveway where a pick-up truck was waiting to take us a few miles down the road to the newly completed agricultural school.

Visiting the new school

I opted to sit in the bed of the truck with a few of the teachers who were accompanying us, along with our volunteer coordinator. Another truck followed behind us, which brought some of the students who were currently enrolled in the agricultural program. For all of them, it was a big event that Luis and I were there to finally see the completed school, which had been under construction for the last two years.

When we turned off the dusty main road to enter the school’s property, all I could see was open land – land that the Montero School administrators had purchased to use for the agricultural school years back, with the promise that Children Incorporated would provide funds for the classrooms, greenhouses, stables, barns and silos.

We parked in front of the entrance to the school, and walked onto the property, which was expansive. Buildings lined the right side and the fields for farming were on the left, probably covering the distance of two football fields. Our volunteer coordinator, Sister Reina, explained that students who attend the school are enrolled in a five-year program – some start while they are still in high school at the Montero School, and some start after graduation. They grow corn, fruit and other local produce, while raising pigs and chickens, and learn how to compost and operate and maintain heavy machinery.

This new addition to the Montero School has potential to help thousands of students and their families in this community.

Another Hope in Action Success

As we walked the grounds and chatted about the school, visiting the new classrooms and getting to see the progress that has been made with working so much land, I could see why Luis was so enthusiastic for me to see the school for myself. With few opportunities for families living in poverty in Bolivia to send their children on to higher education to learn a trade, it was apparent that this school was an absolute blessing for so many students, who would gain the skills they need to generate an income for themselves, and provide a better future for their own children someday. Thanks to our Hope In Action Fund — and more specifically, the generosity of our amazing donors — this new addition to the Montero School has potential to help thousands of students and their families in this community, which is something to be very proud of.

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How do I sponsor a child with Children Incorporated?

You can sponsor a child in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our sponsorship portal, create an account, and search for a child that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Children Incorporated | October 22, 2023

Each year, our volunteer coordinators write letters to our office to let us know their first-hand experiences with how powerful sponsorship is for children at their schools.

Today we hear from Michele at Owingsville Elementary School in Kentucky about how our program has helped children this past year, all thanks to our caring sponsors.

“I thank you all for allowing our Resource Center to be a part of Children Incorporated. It is a true blessing to our school and families.”

Michele’s Letter

“Owingsville Elementary Family Resource Center (FRC) would like to take this opportunity to thank you for allowing our students to be a part of Children Incorporated. Our students have benefited greatly from the sponsorship program. We currently have 22 students sponsored in the program and four newly enrolled awaiting sponsorship. We appreciate all the work Children Incorporated does for these children in need.”

“We started the school year with students returning to school full time. We do offer virtual learning, and about 15-20 students were enrolled in that for the year, however, our elementary school will not offer virtual learning next school year. Our principal, Dr. Bailey, started his fifth year here at Owingsville. I started my 31^st year in the FRC. Melania, the center’s clerk, applied for and was selected coordinator of the Crossroads Elementary FRC, so I spent about seven months without a clerk until February when a new clerk, Emily, was hired. Due to limited funding, she is also the clerk for the Bath County Middle School Resource Center. We came back to school without the COVID-19 restrictions in the fall of 2022. Additional teachers were added to make the teacher to student ratio smaller in first grade.”

Finding everything she needs

Our sponsors help ensure children’s needs are met throughout the year.

“Owingsville Elementary School has been at 74% free lunch for the past year, and we have an enrollment of 543 children from preschool through 5^th grade. Our free lunch percentage and enrollment have both increased in the past years. We have many students in need, and we are blessed to have the Children Incorporated program at our school. Last year, to spend the Children Incorporated funds, I shopped the clearance rack at Kohl’s and was able to get some great clothing. Most of it was for fall and winter, so I saved it and was able to match sizes up with all my Children Incorporated students. In October, I went shopping for fall clothing and shoes. In November, I went shopping for Christmas items and winter clothing. It is becoming increasingly hard to find the good deals on clothes that I used to find. I work very hard to get good quality and quantity. In April, I worked on the Children Incorporated shopping list for spring and summer needs and handed those items out before school was out for the summer.”

“Our center also provides a Backpack Program, where we send home food on the weekends. I currently serve 37 students on this program, and a number of them are Children Incorporated sponsored children. Now, the Summer Feeding Program is currently available, and the Backpack Program will resume in August; however, we are always available to provide emergency food.”

Grateful for all the support

“We appreciate all of the Children Incorporated sponsors and staff! We are fortunate to have sponsors who send additional funds, cards for holidays and special occasions. For the third year in a row, one special sponsor has sent gift cards for me to purchase birthday cakes and sent gift cards for special occasion dinners such Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter for their sponsored child.”

“I thank you all for allowing our Resource Center to be a part of Children Incorporated. It is a true blessing to our school and to families that benefit from it.”

Sincerely,
Michele

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD WITH CHILDREN INCORPORATED?

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | October 15, 2023En Español

When our Director of International Programs, Luis Bourdet, and I discussed traveling to Bolivia in March of 2023, he was most excited about getting to visit the Montero School outside of Santa Cruz.

The support they receive from Children Incorporated sponsors goes a long way to help supplement food items, school supplies and hygiene items for children in our program.

Not only had Children Incorporated donors funded the construction of seven classrooms at the school seven years ago, for which Luis and I were invited to attend the community inaugural event, but more recently, we have supported the school’s efforts to build an agricultural school that had been completed just last year.

Luis is passionate about agriculture. As a young university student in Guatemala, he majored in agriculture before moving to the United States and becoming a teacher, and eventually working with Children Incorporated. He understands the importance of learning a trade and more specifically, a trade that generates an income while really helping the local economy.

Visiting the Montero School

When we arrived in Santa Cruz in early March, we visited our affiliated site, Villa Emilia, before making the trip to Montero, which was about two hours away from the city. Our volunteer coordinators picked us up early in the morning of our scheduled visit, and we headed almost directly north for roughly 60 kilometers, arriving to the school with a warm welcome from our sponsored children and their parents, who had prepared a full morning of presentations for us that included speeches, poem readings and traditional dances.

The Montero School itself is located on a beautiful, large piece of property, where school-aged children attend throughout the day, and classes for older children and adults are held in the evenings. The support they receive from Children Incorporated sponsors goes a long way to help supplement food items, school supplies and hygiene items for children in our program — things they need to make sure they can attend school fully prepared and ready to learn.

A site that continues to grow

After the presentations were over, the children enjoyed a snack from the school’s kitchen and then headed home for the day. Luis and I enjoyed a nice lunch with our volunteer coordinators, and took a quick tour of the school, revisiting the additional classrooms Children Incorporated had built, which now showed signs of many wonderful days of use, as teachers had decorated with lessons, written on the chalkboards, and arranged desks to best fit their students’ learning styles and needs.

In next week’s edition of Stories of Hope, we will visit the agricultural school along with some of the students and teachers who are involved with this new program on a daily basis — another great reminder of just how much our donors help children around the world receive an education.

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How do I sponsor a child with Children Incorporated?

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | October 8, 2023En Español

One of my very first site visits with Children Incorporated is something I will never forget. After a brief few days in La Paz, Bolivia, our Director of International Programs, Luis Bourdet, and I flew to Santa Cruz, in anticipation of meeting with our volunteer coordinator, Sister Pilar, at our affiliated site, Villa Emilia.

The same families still live in the homes, and the sense of community among the children and mothers was endearing.

When I initially met her back in 2016, Sister Pilar really stood out to me. A small, gregarious woman who has dedicated her life to working within underprivileged communities, she walked briskly in front of us as she showed us around Villa Emilia, an expansive compound where women and their children are given a safe place to learn trades and interact with other children away from the dangers of impoverished neighborhoods in the city.

The facility itself impressed me from the first moment I saw it, and made me very aware of just how much work was going into supporting these families. Their main goal is to help get women steady jobs so they can send their children to school and provide a consistent life for them that will help them get out of poverty as they grow into adults themselves. Because the housing on the Villa Emilia campus was limited, the amount of time that women could stay there with the children was also limited, and that was something that Sister Pilar really wanted to change.

looking to children incorporated for support

And change it did. Before we finished our visit with Sister Pilar 7 years ago, she drove us out to a plot of land 20 minutes outside of the city to show us her vision for the future — an empty field where houses would eventually be built that would offer permanent housing for families in need, so they would never have to worry about where they would live ever again.

Sister Pilar explained that Villa Emilia had already purchased the land and gotten permission from the government to build — all they needed now was help with funding the construction of the homes. Luis picked up on her not-so-subtle request for support, and ask Sister Pilar on the spot to send in a Hope In Action request to Children Incorporated for the cost of building the houses.

Three years later, Luis returned to Santa Cruz, where Sister Pilar had been hard at work overseeing plans for eight single family homes to be built. The celebration was joyous for everyone, especially for the mothers who were getting to move themselves and their children into their brand-new houses — all thanks to our donors. Four years after that, I once again traveled to Bolivia to see the homes that Sister Pilar was just as excited to show off as she was when she initially showed them to Luis a few years back.

The same families still live in the homes, and the sense of community among the children and mothers was endearing. As we toured the houses, each similar yet with their own special decorating touches, the children ran from yard to yard and into each other’s homes. I loved seeing how welcoming everyone was with one another — so comfortable and secure in their own neighborhood, where they had little to worry about, which was a drastic change from the lives they had before receiving such amazing support from Villa Emilia, Sister Pilar and Children Incorporated sponsors and donors.

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How do I sponsor a child with Children Incorporated?

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | October 1, 2023En Español

This past July, we had a special surprise at our office in Richmond, Virginia when we received notice that our volunteer coordinator, Peter Njuguna, from the St. John’s Community Center in Nairobi, Kenya, would be visiting. Peter has been a long-time coordinator with Children Incorporated, running our sponsorship program that supports children living in poverty in the Pumwani area of Nairobi.

“Our mission is to promote a just, healthy, and transformative community through capacity building, social inclusion, and accountable interventions,” explained Peter.

Peter arrived at the office prepared with a presentation in which he discussed the mission, vision and curriculum at St. John’s. He explained that the school is especially focused on providing a quality education to help break the cycle of poverty in their community through education, sports, nutrition, life skills, and spiritual guidance, which enables students to reach their full potential and become future leaders.

“Our mission is to promote a just, healthy, and transformative community through capacity building, social inclusion, and accountable interventions,” explained Peter.

“We do this through our Competent-Based Curriculum which helps to individualize each learner within a classroom to improve their critical thinking skills, enhance reading culture, and motivate parents to work closely with teachers to help ensure that comprehensive results are achieved by everyone.”

Peter went on to describe the ways in which this model of teaching has its own challenges — mostly in that it requires new textbooks and computer equipment that are not cost-friendly. It also requires training teachers, which is time consuming. Regardless, Peter is optimistic about this approach to learning, especially since many of the children in the community face so many challenges living in poverty. Their lives became even more difficult during the pandemic, when parents lost their usual labor jobs like housekeeping, construction work, and food vending. Peter watched as more and more children dropped out of school to try to help their families when they needed the support of a school environment more than ever.

Today, according to Peter, 102 children are supported through our sponsorship program from first grade all the way to vocational training which takes place after graduation. This constitutes almost half of the 206 children in total attendance at the school, which means our sponsors have a huge role in making sure students are receiving an education. Beyond providing school supplies and funds for uniforms and text books, our sponsors and donors also provide daily meals for students at the school, which improves their physical fitness and makes it possible for parents to carry on with their work without having to worry about the safety of their children, who no longer have to leave school to come home for lunch.

“We take retention very seriously at St. John’s, so we work hard to follow up with parents and guardians about the learning process so they can express any concerns. We also host parenting classes and give life skills lessons to students about substance abuse, child rights and responsibilities, career paths and personal studies,” said Peter.

Before he finished his presentation, Peter shared with our staff success stories of students who had graduated from the school to go on to work in education, mentoring, and youth leadership. Peter feels strongly that these children, who are now young adults, were able to focus on school and become successful in large part due to their sponsors, and was so happy to be able to express those feelings to all of us in person.

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How do I sponsor a child with Children Incorporated?

SPONSOR A CHILD

Children Incorporated | September 28, 2023

Truly a nation of contrasts, Chile spans over 2,000 miles of South America’s western coastline, with deserts in the north, rainforests in the south and the snowcapped peaks of the Andes Mountains ranging throughout. Although a politically progressive country when it comes to human rights, millions of Chileans live in abject poverty.

Thanks to caring people like you, since 1964, Children Incorporated has helped thousands of children living in poverty in Chile.

There is a striking disparity between the rich and the poor here, which stems in part from the education system. A good education in Chile is expensive, and parents must pick up the bill for tuition costs. It’s a cycle — inadequate education yields unskilled workers who earn insufficient funds to cover tuition expenses for their children. As a result, parents work long hours for low wages, and children often get jobs at a young age to help support their families, preventing them from getting an education.

Challenges for Children in Chile

In Chile, children’s very lives and futures are at risk, as they struggle with poverty and a lack of educational resources. Right now, children in Chile need your help.

According to UNICEF, there are 703,045 children and adolescents living in income poverty
As of 2020, 15.6% of children in Chile are impoverished
Healthcare inequalities among the poor are a major issue in Chile meaning poor families often get low-quality services or none at all
Child labor in Chile keeps children from attending school and receiving an education, which would help them break the cycle of poverty within their household

Thanks to caring people like you, since 1964, Children Incorporated has helped thousands of children living in poverty in Chile.

We work with our volunteer coordinators in local communities to provide health and nutrition, education, hygiene items, clothes, shoes, and other essentials that help children and families rise above the poverty in which they live.

Our strategy is to focus on individual children through our sponsorship program, ensuring they are receiving exactly what they need on a regular basis.

Your support makes all our work possible to help children in crisis in Chile.

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How do I sponsor a child in Chile?

SPONSOR A CHILD