Tag Archives: education

Shelley Callahan | June 6, 2018

The small landlocked nation of Bolivia comprises the rugged Andes Mountains and vast high-altitude plateaus to the west, including a portion of Lake Titicaca – the largest high-altitude lake in the world. The lush lowland plains of the Amazon Jungle are found to the east. Despite its wealth of natural beauty and resources, Bolivia bears the scars of centuries of conflict, beginning with the Spanish conquistadors and followed by almost 200 years of wars and internal military coups.

Political and economic instability have brought about considerable poverty there, resulting in widespread malnutrition, crime, and disease. For these reasons, Children Incorporated supports hundreds of children in Bolivia each year, providing them with basic necessities so that they have the opportunity to go to school and succeed.

Facts about Bolivia

– Population: 10.1 million (UN, 2011)

– Capital: Sucre (official), La Paz (administrative)

– Largest city: Santa Cruz

– Area: 1.1 million square kilometers, or 424,164 square miles

Nearly 60% of Bolivians live below the poverty line. In rural areas, the numbers are even more dramatic. Three out of every four people living in these areas suffer from poverty.

– Major languages: Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, Guarani

– Major religion: Christianity

– Life expectancy: 65 years for men, 69 years for women (UN)

– Monetary unit: the boliviano

– Main exports: soybeans, natural gas, zinc, gold, silver, lead, tin, antimony, wood, sugar

Facts about child poverty in Bolivia

– It is estimated that 2.5 million children live in conditions of poverty. The causes of mortality in children under the age of 5, according to the Ministry of Health, are directly associated with poverty. An estimated 36% of these deaths occur as a result of diarrheal diseases, and an estimated 28%, as a result of malnutrition.

– According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the poverty in Bolivia is among the worst in South America. Economic growth and opportunities to make a living are most commonly found in urban areas, making it difficult for indigenous farmers, inhabitants of more remote areas with fewer people, to market their products and provide for their families.

– Nearly 60% of Bolivians live below the poverty line. In rural areas, the numbers are even more dramatic. Three out of every four people living in these areas suffer from poverty.

– One reason for the extreme poverty lies in Bolivia’s geography: many of the country’s roads are undeveloped, so farmers have difficulty transporting their products to sell them in markets outside of town – which, in turn, negatively impacts their families and the communities in which they live.

– It is estimated that 70% of the rural population and 30% of the urban population are illiterate.

– The incomes of nearly two-thirds of households are too low to afford the minimum amount of food necessary for healthy living.

-Around 12% of school-age children in Bolivia are not attending school.

Where we work

In Bolivia, we affiliate with fourteen projects in three major cities and their surrounding areas: Santa Cruz, La Paz, and Sucre. Santa Cruz is Bolivia’s largest city. Sucre, Bolivia’s constitutional capital, retains much of the flavor of Spanish colonialism, including many buildings erected by the conquistadors, and the second-oldest university in Latin America. At 12,000 feet above sea level, La Paz is the highest capital city in the world.

How you can help in Bolivia

You can help a child living in poverty to receive an education in a few different ways. One way is through our child sponsorship program. Sponsorship provides an underprivileged child with basic and education-related necessities such as food, clothing, healthcare, school supplies, and school tuition payments. This vital support allows impoverished, vulnerable children to develop to their full potential – physically, emotionally, and socially. Sponsors positively impact the lives of the children they sponsor through the simple knowledge that someone cares about their well-being. This gives children in need hope, which is powerful.

Sponsorship provides an underprivileged child with basic and education-related necessities such as food, clothing, healthcare, school supplies, and school tuition payments.

Our policy has always been to consider the needs of each sponsored child on an individual basis. We work closely with our volunteer coordinators at our project sites, who are familiar with each individual circumstance and the needs of every child in their care. Sponsorship donations are sent to our projects – orphanages, homes, community centers, and schools – at the beginning of each month in the form of subsidy stipends. Our on-site volunteer coordinators use those funds to purchase items for children in our program, to ensure that they have what they need to do their very best and succeed in school.

You can also help children in Bolivia by donating to one of our special funds. Our special funds offer a variety of giving options for sponsors who wish to further their support, as well as for donors who wish to make a difference without making a commitment. In the past, thanks to donations to our Hope In Action Fund, we have been able to build classrooms, as well as homes for people living in poverty in Bolivia, greatly changing their lives for the better, and giving them the opportunity to become financially stable.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN BOLIVIA?

You can sponsor a child in Bolivia 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 donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Bolivia that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

References:

https://www.unicef.org/bolivia/children_1540.htm

https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-bolivia/

https://www.unicef.org/bolivia/children_1538.htm

Shelley Callahan | June 1, 2018En Español

Providing food to children in need as part of our work goes beyond just ensuring that kids have meals while they are at school. Oftentimes, children both in the United States and abroad also need food to take home so that they and their families don’t go hungry on nights and weekends. So every month, the volunteer coordinators at our affiliated projects in Paraguay, the Hogar Medalla Milagrosa and the Asuncion School, give our sponsored and unsponsored children a bag of food to take home. The bags contain dry goods such as flour, sugar, bread, and pasta so that the families can make meals at home.

Providing food to children in need as part of our work goes beyond just ensuring that kids have meals while they are at school. Oftentimes, children also need food to take home so that they and their families don’t go hungry on nights and weekends.

About Paraguay

Nestled in the heart of South America, Paraguay comprises an area roughly the size of California, characterized by semiarid grasslands, forested highlands, marshlands, and rivers. Paraguay boasts a well-preserved indigenous identity and heritage, but a wide range of ethnicities call this small landlocked nation home, including immigrants from Australia, Germany, Russia, Italy, France, and Spain. Paraguay’s rich cultural diversity and wealth of natural resources, however, belie the abject poverty in which the majority of its residents live.

Many areas of the country remain underdeveloped, with inhabitants relying on subsistence farming for their livelihood. One of South America’s poorest nations today, Paraguay is plagued by a history of bloody wars with neighboring countries as well as by internal political instability, corruption, a deficient infrastructure, and poverty. Even the sprawling Paraguayan capital, Asuncion, is no exception to these maladies.

Introducing the Hogar Medalla Milagrosa

Bags of food feed children and their families, who otherwise might go hungry.

Located in Asuncion, the Hogar Medalla Milagrosa serves as a beacon of hope for impoverished children, most of whom come from the streets or broken homes, where obtaining food is a daily struggle. Founded in 1895 and run by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, the home serves as a primary school and boarding home for orphaned and abandoned children. The nuns not only strive to provide for these deserving children’s immediate basic needs, but they also offer them moral guidance while equipping students with a sound education.

The Asuncion School

The Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul established the Asuncion School — or, as it is known locally, Santa Luisa de Marillac — to serve children living in poverty in one of Asuncion’s poorest neighborhoods. Many of these children suffer from neglect and malnutrition as a direct result of their parents’ poverty. The Asuncion School truly serves as a beacon of hope to help them to rise above the difficult socio-economic circumstances from which they come, and to have the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN PARAGUAY?

You can sponsor a child in Paraguay 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 donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Paraguay that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Ron Carter | May 31, 2018

Dear Friends,

At any given time, we have over 1,000 children on our waiting list for sponsorship. Currently, there are more than 600 unsponsored children in our United States Division alone. One of our organization’s most difficult challenges is finding enough sponsors to support all the children referred to us by our network of volunteer coordinators. After being enrolled in our sponsorship program, some children wait many months — even years — before they are matched with individual sponsors.

One of our organization’s most difficult challenges is finding enough sponsors to support all the children referred to us by our network of volunteer coordinators.

Ideally, every enrolled child would have a sponsor — but the reality is that there aren’t as many individual sponsors as there are children in need in our program. That is why our Shared Hope Fund is incredibly important. Established to assist children who are not yet linked with sponsors, the fund provides food, clothing, educational assistance, and much more as these children wait to be sponsored.

We have heard many heartwarming stories of young people who have benefitted greatly as a direct result of our Shared Hope Fund. Avi*, a young man from India, is one such person. He did not have a sponsor, yet assistance from our Shared Hope Fund supported him throughout his high school years. After graduating, Avi desperately wanted to continue attending classes and receive vocational training, so he applied for assistance from our Higher Education Fund, which gave him the opportunity to go on to college.

Avi is now a Doctor of Pharmacy and has been working in this field for about a year now. Like Avi, there are other young men and women who have graduated from high school and who are now attending college under these same circumstances — and we are very proud that we are able to help them through our Higher Education Fund.

Your donations provide for the immediate needs of children in our program.

Both of these special funds are very important, and we need your support in order to keep meeting needs as they arise! Our Shared Hope Fund made it possible for Luisa*, a young girl in Guatemala, to receive school supplies while she waited to become sponsored. Marlene, a precious child from Kentucky, received a brand new pair of glasses when hers broke — and she didn’t have to wait until she had a sponsor to receive this assistance. Through our Higher Education Fund, Summer, also from Kentucky, is now a junior in college with the goal of working in the field of business administration after she graduates. Chelsea, another young woman who was enrolled in our child sponsorship program, is now a college senior and straight-A student who will soon begin her career as a systems analyst.

Our Shared Hope Fund and our Higher Education Fund are but two of the many ways in which Children Incorporated continues to meet needs around the world. Please consider making a contribution to one or both of these special funds today.

From the heart,

Ronald H. Carter
President and Chief Executive Officer
Children Incorporated

*All names changed for individuals’ protection.

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HOW DO I DONATE TO THE SHARED HOPE FUND AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION FUND?

You can donate to our Shared Hope Fund and Higher Education Fund 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 donation portal and select the fund you would like to donate to.

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Shelley Callahan | May 23, 2018En Español

Located twenty minutes from downtown New Orleans, the city’s eastern 9^thWard is a tight-knit community of over 65,000 residents. “The East,” as most locals call it, started off in the 1960s as a suburban-style area within the city limits. Beginning in the mid-1980s, this region began to decline into a state of poverty. The city’s public schools system, notorious for being one of the worst in the country, only perpetuated the problem into the next generation. Then came the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In the storm’s wake, countless businesses – and even hospitals – opted not to re-open, leaving the residents of an already-troubled community severely underserviced. Recovery has been slow. In an area prone to crime and littered with abandoned buildings and homes, kids face significant barriers to their ability to succeed in school.

In addition to having difficulty concentrating in school, some of the children lost their homes for a second time in their young lives.

At the ReNEW Schaumburg Elementary School, staff work hard to help children overcome these obstacles. Founded in 1965, the school was originally part of the New Orleans public schools system. It became a ReNEW charter school in 2013; and today, it is the largest school in the city, with 875 children in grades kindergarten through eight. The dedicated faculty strives to innovatively prepare students for college and beyond, providing personalized attention to each student’s educational and non-academic needs. The ReNEW Schaumburg Elementary School also offers an advanced Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) lab and a world-class library.

When disaster strikes

In February of 2017, a tornado severely damaged the ReNEW Schaumburg Elementary School building and the surrounding New Orleans East community. School was in session and children were in the building when the tornado struck. The administration, faculty, and staff earned acclaim from city officials for keeping the children safe and maintaining order during the tornado, and no one was injured.

Renée with Erin and one of our sponsored children

After the storm was over, the school was vacated for repairs. As kids were shifted to a temporary facility, they found themselves in overcrowded classrooms that were cramped and uncomfortable. Some of the children suffered emotional trauma due to having experienced the tornado and the transition to a new school. Their test scores dropped as a result of these factors.

In addition to having difficulty concentrating in school, some of the children lost their homes for a second time in their young lives. Students who were in grades six and above had lived through Hurricane Katrina, and now they faced yet another natural disaster in their short lifetimes. Twenty-five homes were damaged, and most of the families did not have renter’s insurance. As families worked to rebuild their lives, they lived with other families, often sleeping on couches in tight quarters.

Excited to read

Erin is our volunteer coordinator at ReNEW Schaumburg Elementary School. On a recent trip to visit the school, our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, met with Erin. Erin told Renée that she loves our sponsorship program. While Erin focuses on providing basic needs such as clothing and shoes to our sponsored and unsponsored children, she is also a big believer in supporting literacy and a true love of reading. She participates in the Lollipop Book Club, through which she orders books for kids, and they receive a wrapped book and lollipop. Erin can shop for books by reader age or search by theme, such as John Newbery Medal winners. She said that the kids get really excited about their books.

Erin also expressed to Renée that she appreciates when sponsors send additional gifts to their sponsored children, because they allow her to take time to really be thoughtful and personal about the items she chooses for sponsored children. She often spends the extra funds on hygiene and grooming items – something that she feels the children need very often, especially while living in transitional environments.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN NEW ORLEANS?

You can sponsor a child in New Orleans in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | May 23, 2018En Español

When Danielle* was a sponsored child with Children Incorporated, she dreamed of going to college — but her family couldn’t afford it. So before she graduated from high school, with the help of our volunteer coordinator at her school in Kentucky, Danielle applied for assistance from our Higher Education Fund.

Thankfully, because of our wonderful donors and supporters, we had the funds available to grant Danielle’s request for support; and she went on to pursue a degree in education at Morehead State University. At that time, Danielle said, “The Children Incorporated sponsorship program has really changed my life and my perception of giving. I want to share that with absolutely everyone that I can. Thank you all so much for everything that you do. I am grateful that the Children Incorporated program is giving me the opportunity to reach my dreams.”

“I am so grateful that someone saw the ability in me to spend day in and day out with ‘those kids’ – because I love them as my own.”
– Danielle

Helping troubled youth

After graduating from college in 2011, Danielle accepted a position teaching middle school students in Western Kentucky. Then, in 2016, ready for a new challenge, Danielle accepted a position teaching troubled youth in Tennessee. She wrote to our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, about her experience working with these special kids after her first year on the job.

Danielle stated, “Around this time a year ago, I interviewed for a position as a teacher at an alternative school in Knoxville. I never imagined what a wonderful fit the position would be for me — perhaps not until today, as my first school year comes to an end. Educators often look at the troubled children in school and want someone else to ‘deal with them.’ Until working with these kids daily, I had also felt that way.”

A caring educator

Danielle continued, “But now, only two days into summer break, my mind is racing with questions: Are the kids hungry? Are they staying off the streets? Are they emotionally okay today? Has someone told them good morning and made them realize their value today? My strongest and weakest personality trait as an educator is that I care so very deeply. I tell my kids I love them daily, even when they seem unlovable. Creating a classroom that allows students to open up and share their stories is part of who I am as an educator — and do they ever share their stories!

Danielle is an advocate for her students.

“If I am not going to be there one day, I see the importance of letting them know that I will be absent, because for some of them, their teachers are their only stability. This time last year, I had no idea that I would be the teacher I am now. I am the one who cries for weeks after a student is arrested, because they possess so much value. I am the one who believes in the kids that no one ever believes in; the one who will stop class to help a student who is all out of sorts; and the one who makes it a priority to know every bit of a child’s life, and to help them work through difficulties. My students and co-workers have been my source of learning and growing this year. I am so grateful that someone saw the ability in me to spend day in and day out with ‘those kids’ — because I love them as my own.”

It is obvious that Danielle is a caring and outstanding educator, and that she is an advocate for her students. A lot of the questions that she asks about her troubled students are the exact same questions that our volunteer coordinators ask about the children enrolled in our sponsorship program. Here at Children Incorporated, we are so proud of Danielle. She is an amazing, self-supporting person who beautifully showcases the importance of both our sponsorship program and our Higher Education Fund.

*Name changed for individual’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENTUCKY?

You can sponsor a child in Kentucky in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | May 18, 2018En Español

We don’t usually relate recycling to helping deaf children, but at the Father Andeweg Institute for the Deaf (FAID) in Lebanon, a project involving plastic bottle caps is doing just that. The children and administrators at FAID have started collecting plastic bottles caps. For every 600,000 caps they collect, the school recycles them for money that is used to buy a new hearing aid for a needy child in attendance, many of whom are Syrian refugee children. In addition to collecting bottle caps to purchase hearing aids, FAID is also using the empty plastic bottles, as well as old car tires, to paint and decorate for a sensory garden for the children as part of the recycling project.

About Lebanon

In addition to collecting bottle caps to purchase hearing aids, FIAD is also using the empty plastic bottles, as well as old car tires, to paint and decorate for a sensory garden for the children as part of the recycling project.

Renowned for its towering cedar trees, Lebanon boasts fertile valleys; snow-capped, ore-rich mountains; and – in a region where water is scarce – sixteen rivers that flow into the glistening Mediterranean Sea along Lebanon’s western coast. This small Middle Eastern country has an incredibly rich culture, evincing the influence of such illustrious civilizations as the Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman Turk, and French. However, Lebanon’s wealth of diversity has also contributed to its turbulent history.

Lebanon continues to suffer repercussions of a history riddled with wars – both civil and international. Poverty, unemployment, and the ever-present threat of war are tragic realities here. These are, perhaps, most pronounced in Beirut, the nation’s capital. Settled over 5,000 years ago, this historic city is Lebanon’s largest and primary seaport, but it is also afflicted with dire poverty and its socioeconomic effects.

Helping children cope with hearing loss

Needy children in Beirut not only face hardships when it comes to living in poverty, but those that attend FAID are also afflicted with the complications of their disability. Founded in 1957, FAID provides deaf children with a basic education, as well as with specialized training, to enable students to become self-sufficient. The school plays a crucial role in giving these hearing-impaired – and often destitute – children the opportunity to rise above the challenging circumstances that they face.

Currently, there are twenty Syrian refugee children registered at the school; and despite the difficulties that supporting them all financially presents, projects such as the recycling program and support from Children Incorporated sponsors are crucial to these vulnerable children receiving an education.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN LEBANON?

You can sponsor a child in Lebanon 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 donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Lebanon that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD