La Esperanza monthly newsletter

This month´s photos: Children, Parents and Volunteers walking to town for High School Registration; Doing the Paperwork; A happy student on the first day of school; Traditional Dancing at the official opening of La Prusia's new classrooms.

It feels as though all of this month has been building up to the climax of the opening of the schools for the 2007 school year. Earlier in the month volunteers continued working with both summer schools and the Children's Activity Group, but the last two weeks everyone has been preparing for the new year which commenced on Monday 29th.

We have some great plans for this coming year. As well as tutoring grades one and two in the schools we will increase our level of activity in the 'preescolar' or kindergarten all four schools (last year we only helped a little in two schools). Another area we want to place more focus this year is in community health, and especially the health of the children. This year in addition to our school/community nurse whose salary we pay, we will have a 'health' team of volunteers.

Two major building projects have been completed this month – the double classroom building at La Prusia and the double classroom building at La Epifania. Thanks to The Christ the Healer Mission Group with is a Mission Group under the auspices of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, in New Orleans, U.S.A., we will be able to furnish the classrooms at La Epifania as well as the library room there, plus pay the salary of two extra teachers which means that grades one and two classes can be split into reasonable class sizes instead of one teacher having to deal with over 40 young children. The groundwork of these early years in school is so important to their future. This team, who we met through Bill Wayman last year, also brought down computers and donated 5 of them to La Epifania. We will set them up and install the programs, and plan to have a volunteer teaching computer classes in the school next month.

Teachers of course are one of the most important resources of any schools, and this year through the generosity of all our friends we will be paying the salaries of seven teachers in the schools to help reduce class sizes. One of these is a special needs teacher/child phsycologist. As part of our new efforts (some former volunteers will be amazed) in addition to orientation, and a tour around all the schools, the new volunteers spent a day preparing for tutoring, discussing how to use the items provided in their tutoring kits, getting tips on tutoring from team leaders and volunteers who were here last year, and also receiving advice and listening to a talk about local conditions and learning difficulties in Nicaragua from Georgina who will be the special needs teacher. Every second week we will be holding group meetings to work specifically with how to improve the effectiveness of time spent with the children, and having this specialist advice will be a great help.

The secondary school children now need a full team of volunteers to help them as we have over 50 children attending secondary school thanks to your sponsorship. Chris, Jessie, Judith and Karolien have been to visit the schools and have organized that the children can be tutored by our volunteers in the area they come from, e.g. in their local school. The La Prusia children of course have the benefit of our Community Center.

So many new volunteers this month, all for two months and quite a few for longer terms, we have welcomed Colin Williamson, Lynette Fairclough, Karolien Swaak, Liz Gage, Lauri Tamayo, Laura Manganello, Armando Sotero, Jason Wofsey, Judith Harleman, Lizzie Dipple, Johanna Holman, Becca Alban, Margaux Vulloid, Louis Koenig, Fenna Stomps, Brenda Registe, Linda Yu, Mike Kent Smith, Norm and Lulu Green, Torey Jovick, Jessie Godert, Oscar Bodi Lavall and Kamel Mehasni. We have a wonderful team and look forward to a good year ahead of us. We expect to be able to give to the communities something in the region of 40,000 volunteer hours in 2007!

Donations this month make a long list too and we are so grateful for all the resources so many have brought along, Armando brought over 1000 vitamin tablets, Lizzie, books and puzzles and games, Romero Hernandez Diaz brought lots of great school and art supplies, Becca had sent Spanish language information booklets regarding different aspects of mental health, Jason bought a large amount of beads and cord for the womens working group which he donated to us, Colin brought useful binders and things we need in the office, and Kamel arrived with a bag full of books, toys, even Calendars for La Esperanza Granada that he had printed to do fund raising for us before he left the U.K. (he also brought with him 290 pounds sterling that he raised, plus 40 Euros from his mother Nadia Mehasni). Laura Manganello brought lots of school supplies too, as well as $250 from her parents Bruno and Rossana.

The friends of Charlotte and Stefan Schmidt who I mentioned last month have promised to send 4000 Euros, to be used for our teachers salaries fund. This is a wonderful boost as extra teachers are so badly needed, no matter how many volunteer hours we can offer – the money was raised when Huib Roskam held a 15th Anniversary dinner for his company. The evening was called “Jubileum Vijverberg” and featured a powerpoint presentation about La Esperanza Granada.

We also had pay pal donations this month, from Denton and Terry Sparks, $100, from Jeremy Jensen, $50, from future volunteer Wayne Krause $30 and $25, James Hanesworth sent $200. Delia and Cyril Blakeman sent through $100 Australian. Desi McCaul, who had labored here for some months helping build the new houses in La Prusia for Casas de la Esperanza sent us $500.

The village of Adstock in Buckinghamshire, U.K. sent us $1020. This was thanks to Roger Simmons who had visited last year. Roger put on a fundraising slide show in the village and now the village would like to help one of the villages here who are less fortunate. Maybe we can start a Sister Village project! (Sister City would be a bit big for us)

Thank you so very much to all of you who have been helping us so much and caring so much about La Esperanza Granada. I’m sure I speak on behalf of all the volunteers here when I say we will do our best, and we look forward to a wonderful 2007 filled with the joy of helping.

Regards, Pauline.