The same day I saw Cecilia, the village elders asked me to fix the house of another GCL member, Beth. It needed only a few simple repairs to prop up the walls and fill the holes.

Often it's not the big actions that make the most difference. It's the small ones. $3 a month for child care; $3 to buy small bags of flour and beans for dinner; $45 to shore up a house, etc. What matters is that GCL is on the spot when children have a need. Working with Kiandutu's village elders, GCL helps within the hour. Isn't it nice to be a part of it?

Debbie    

These little boys and girls will learn. Slowly but surely, they’ll gain the skills and knowledge to prepare them for the first grade and the years beyond.

For some of the poorest families in the world, today is filled with hope and promise. But they need your help.  By sponsoring a child, you can provide a desperately poor little boy or girl with nutritious food, medical care and an early childhood education— all for only $25 a month. You can give a child the chance for a real future.

Please, go to www.giveachildlife.org/sponsor and choose a child to help today.

We are making a difference for the little ones here--thanks to caring people like you.

Debbie 

Debbie

She worries constantly about caring for her children, but she maintains hope. Once her youngest is about a month old, Rose will be able to carry her on her back while she looks for work. Until then, each day is a struggle to provide food for the children. Right now, she does not even have sufficient breast milk to nurse the baby.

GCL has provided emergency food for the family and is working on a long term plan to help them.

While the preschool was in session, the 40 children received a nutritious meal each day. However, while the center is closed from mid-November until early January, many children go hungry.

On a recent trip, Debbie noticed how thin some of the children were. In response, we're giving the 15 neediest boys and girls a warm daily lunch rich in protein, vitamins and minerals while the Center is closed. Since we started on November 17^th, no child has missed a day.

Food baskets can help families through hard times. But feeding programs can target specific children and make a lifesaving difference. Enjoy your holiday feasts knowing that others are cared for, because of your compassion. 

1. The flooding did not leave hugely visible scars, but it did wipe out the crops, particularly the corn and beans. Many of the families at the Center have small plots a few miles away where they grow food to supplement what they can buy. This food was destroyed. Hunger will be a problem until they can grow new crops. Right now, they are worried about getting the funds to buy more seeds.

I became concerned after seeing some of the children. One girl in particular had lost a lot of weight. She had amoebic dysentery.  The flooding created additional water contamination because of the run-off. I asked Carlos to set up a five week program giving a healthy lunch with meat to the 12 sickest and hungriest children while the Center closed for the holidays.  

2. Water in general continues to be a serious concern. The government has started putting in a system in a nearby neighborhood; El Zaite is next on the list. But we can only believe it will happen once it starts. Carlos and I decided to buy 13 water filters sold by Cortaid, a nonprofit organization in El Salvador. We'll give 10 to the families with the children suffering most often from dysentery/diarrhea and put 3 in the Center: 1 in each classroom and 1 in the kitchen. When the children arrive at the Center in the morning, they'll dump the water they bring into the filters and in an hour or so, they'll have clean water to drink. This will help them get used to water filtration. We plan to track whether the children’s health improves.

3. The 900 books we distributed last spring made a huge difference. For the first time, all of the children graduating from the Center are entering kindergarten already reading. Parents described how the books "opened up their children's imaginations". I found the books in the families' homes, usually on low shelves where children could reach them easily. They clearly were much used. On this trip, I brought three huge suitcases filled with books for children starting at the Center in January.

4. The Center is doing an excellent job tracking the children's progress. While there, I picked up the post-development assessments done at the end of the year. I also collected post surveys from parents and older children who received books last spring.

Overall our program seems to be doing very well, and we identified other areas for expansion in the next year. More to news to come soon.

Warmly,

Debbie

Today you can donate $1-$10 to Give A Child Life through www.philanthroper.com. Because we're a small organization, none of your gift goes for overhead. With only $1, you can provide a sick toddler with the medicine he needs or send a little girl to child care for a full month. With $2, you can buy a bag of flour and a bit of cooking oil for a starving family. For $10, you can create lasting change by seeding a small business for a single mother.

Can you contribute $1 or more?  Will you share this message with a friend (or several) who might like to do the same? For the children’s sake, thank you.

Debbie

Our monthly meeting in Kiandutu was held last Saturday. We had many parents turn up. We gave a presentation on Family Planning, and it was interesting to see how well the parents participated with questions and contributions. Next topic will be on breastfeeding.

We then discussed the issue of learning simple math for small businesses. We acknowledged the efforts of a few women who have successfully started businesses and kept books and asked if others were interested in doing the same. Parents who wished to open or expand upon small businesses included:

Nancy Adhiambo needs kshs. 1,000/$10 to sell roasted maize after providing day care services.
Amina needs kshs. 2,000/$20 to boost her perfume business.
Zipporah needs kshs. 1500/$15 as she already has a vegetable stall and wishes to sell charcoal also.
Sahara Isaac needs kshs. 2,000/$20 because her snack business went down when she was nursing a sick child.

In total it will cost kshs. 6,500/$65 to have these ladies in business.

After discussion, the ladies suggested that this be given to them as soft loans repayable within the first month after one has made profits, so that others could borrow and benefit.

Do you think we could try this and monitor it? Say create a revolving fund of kshs.10,000/$100 earmarked for small businesses?  

Kindly put forth your thoughts and suggestions.

Carol

We forwarded this email to our supporters and the result was wonderful; we raised enough to start the program, which will lay the groundwork for real, lasting change. Carol will teach these women to add, subtract and calculate a profit. She’ll also go over their books with them on a regular basis so they understand the process. With these lessons and a little seed money, the mothers can start or grow their small business, and perhaps someday will be able to support themselves and their families without our help. Thank you to everyone who made this possible. 

Today we have finished a survey of the people who have lost their crops, and the funds you sent will go to purchase emergency food and medicine for them. More than 65 families are in desperate need.
Each family will receive a bag of food, which costs $12.00, containing 5 pounds of beans, 5 pounds of rice, 5 pounds of sugar and 5 pounds of powdered milk. The remaining funds will pay for medical treatments.

I have received your contribution of $1,500, and we will try to deliver food to families on Thursday. We are waiting a little longer so that we will have minimum problems with the food distributions. I will send you photos of the delivery.

There is still an incredible amount of rain throughout the country. It rained for nine days without stopping. Classes are suspended until further notice under provisions of the Ministry of Education.

Carlos

As of Monday, 32 Salvadorians had been killed by the storm. Forecasts show that the rain will begin again tomorrow and should continue through the rest of the month. It’s hard to say when the children will return to school and the parents to work. But thanks to support from Give A Child Life, at least they will have a little something to eat and those suffering from dengue, bronchial infections and other illnesses will get the treatments they need.