Volunteer Vacations are Inspiring and Fun and Save Lives

Our two weeks spent at the Casa de Sion in April were incredibly moving and memorable. I’ll share a few of my memories.

Every morning we would start our day at the Casa, where we would eat breakfast cooked by the amazing Dominga and discuss the plan for the day with incredibly organized “Super Mario.” We would then pack up the van and set off to whichever small town we were serving for the day.

Upon arrival in the town, we would check out the space we planned to use for our clinic. A few times we had an actual clinic, and many times we would have a community center where we would set up some makeshift private rooms using chairs, sheets, pieces of wood, or whatever else was on hand.

Each clinical space would be attended by a student and a resident or doctor. We also would set up an intake area for vital signs and history taking, and a pharmacy/checkout area. Our staff of 12 took turns rotating through the various duties every day.

The majority of the patients we saw were women and children, though we also saw a few men. The patients were dressed in their beautiful traditional colorful “traje” and many women would have a baby or toddler snuggled comfortably in their shawls on their back or chest. Their medical concerns were varied, but many had headaches, backaches, and stomach problems. In many towns we used interpreters who translated from the patients’ native Quiche to Spanish to assist in our history-taking.

We felt fortunate to be able to visit Lucia, a young girl whom we had diagnosed with a heart condition a year ago. Since that time, she has had heart surgery arranged by the Casa de Sion, and she has now recovered very well and is energetic and thriving, and has gained 20 needed pounds! She was not too happy to see the American medical foks again, but her parents were very grateful.

Another memorable patient was a young woman with uncontrolled seizures. We were able to get her started on a medication which helped control the seizures and now she can live a more independent life without the constant supervision of her family.

We were happy to see that Nueva Victoria, a town which did not have either running water or electricity when we were here last year, now has both. The women no longer need to hike downhill 4 km and back up carrying heavy water jugs.

I found the people to be reserved but very generous and welcoming. They have so little materially, but shared food and drinks with us and welcomed us into their communities and told us much about their lives.  This enriched my experience and made me feel a strong sense of connection with them. I feel so incredibly fortunate for this, as well as the chance to work with such an interesting and compassionate team of students, residents, doctors and staff. It was truly an experience of a lifetime. 

Kim McDermott MD

Mother's Day Plea: Two Stories on Why We Want to Open the Orphanage/ Part Two

Here is baby Karla, obviously a sweet Mayan baby. Her problem is she has no Mama. She is being kept alive by a grandma and a 8 and 10 year old girl. She is basically living on a bed in a dark room in Guatemala. The reason the picture is dark is because her life is dark and it was taken in the dark room she lives in. I know she would be placed by her family in the orphanage as soon as it opened. We provide her formula and her clothes now as the family is too poor to provide them. The problem is we can not make sure the formula is fed to her and we can not make sure she is taken care of.
I know that the ones of you who have a parents heart can relate to this. Can you please help so we can help her???
HERE's How
1. Be her sponsor for $40 a month
2. Pay the $2750 we need to get started on the mountains of paperwork required.
3. Help pay for the third floor we need to be able to house the orphans. Bring a team down and paint walls and furniture so we look presentable.
4. Pray for the help we need before Karla becomes one more Guatemalan malnourished kid tragedy.

Hope you had a great Mother's Day

Vicki Dalia
Director of Safe Homes For Children-Casa de Sion
20.vicki@gmail.com

Mother's Day Plea: Two Stories on Why We Want to Open an Orphanage/ Part 1

Many of you will remember Juan and his two boys, Juanito (on the right) and Erwin.  Juan came to work several years back as a guardian and field hand, and it was soon evident that Juan had some serious mental health issues.  He worked at a snail's pace and was perfectionistic to a fault.  But he was malnourished and pitiful and it was hard not to want to help him.  His presence at our facility on the weekends gave us security and his two boys obviously needed some structure in their lives.  They had been living on the streets of Guatemala City.  And that's what we were doing: helping kids (and adults that were really only kids). These boys

The boys did not seem to have a mother and were lacking many of the love pats a mother adds to a child's life. I tried to add some of the things to their lives that a mother would have made sure they had. It was hard tho as Juan did not cooperate. I wanted routine. I wanted discipline. I wanted cleanliness and a healthy diet.He wanted none of these. He loved them in an easy way as long as it required no effort. We got the boys in school next door and we didn't know it at the time, but this was probably the highpoint of their lives.  As if often the case with abused and neglected children (and adults), with the security (meals and a paycheck) of their new life we started having problems.  We decided that Juan was probably autistic which accounted for the fact that it took him a month to do a two-day job.  And part of it was plain old attitude.  Dominga complained of missing food from the locked kitchen. Then volunteers began complaining of money missing even from locked rooms.  We knew the latter was Erwin who could charm the socks off anyone.  We had several "come to Jesus" talks which didn't do any good.  Several times Juan was absent without notice for days at a time and his one redeeming factor--security--was useless.

After endless warnings, we eventually had to let him go, which was a heartbreaker for us, and he moved to Panajachel where he had been going to church and had engendered similiar sympathies among many of the members.  Months later he wore out his welcome there as he had with us and he and the two boys were on the streets again.  Roy, our accountant, had an old house he let them use and we gave them a monthly allotment of food--part of our fast offering.  In time they left that house and were living on the streets again but with a more lavish lifestyle that scared us.  It looked like the two boys were doing prostitution. 

Recently, the two boys disappeared for a week and Juan finally went to the police.  When the boys returned, the court got involved.  Juan did not have proper paperwork and the boys were sent into an orphanage, which will be their last best chance for a relatively normal life.  This story is not that uncommon with the rampant malnutrition that causes serious and permanent damage to the brain.  This and several other stories that we'll publish over the next few weeks are causing us to rethink opening the orphanage.  While it was one long battle for us with the government, the winners were the kids.

We also need a mature couple to make a  commitment to the running of said orphanage and our other projects among the poor Mayans of Guatemala .

Money for the orphanage project can be donated with the donate button or sent by check to

Vicki Dalia

Casa De Sion Director

CEO of Safe Homes For Children

3303 Pond Mountain Lane

Whitetop, VA 24292

--
Casa de Sion
Fundraising Coordinator
http://casadesion.blogspot.com/
Master of Public Administration
Marriott School of Management



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Husband Found Dead; Widow and Orphaned Children Need your help

Got Word last week that a man had been found dead in Los Robles. He left this widow and 4 orphaned children. 

This is the youngest, age 3.This is the house that the desperate family lives in. There are 3 more children ages 5,7 and 11. The house needed more lamina to protect the family from the mud and wetness during the rainy season. In Los Robles, Guatemala we have bad rainy seasons. Luckily we had lamina that a volunteer vacation team had used on another project. That project had to be rebuilt from the ground up so we stored the donated lamina. We are now giving it to this Mayan family.

HOW CAN YOU HELP BRING A SMILE TO HER FACE? 

Donate to our projects mark your gift as for the widowed lady and her 4 orphaned children. She has NO education and is unable to provide for her family. The government provides no aid. We will use your money to buy food for them.

Thanks,

Vicki Dalia

Director of Casa de Sion/Safe Homes For Children

20.vicki@gmail.com 

Mama and Tots program - help malnourished children and mothers in Guatemala

Casa de Sion is currently raising money to feed malnourished children in Guatemala. Read about the crisis and learn how you can help provide infant formula for at-risk children in poor Mayan communities.

Little Carlos is a Mayan baby in Los Robles,
Guatemala who receives life-saving infant
formula through the Mama and Tots program.

One of the saddest things we see in rural Guatemala is children that are seriously handicapped--usually both mentally and physically. Perhaps a case of a mother that was starving when she conceived and did not get proper nutrition during her pregnancy and did not have enough breast milk to feed her child. Here is the United States, we sometimes forget that third world countries do not have a social safety net; there is no Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program if you are poor. Consequently, many children are permanently disabled for life in a country that cares very little for its poor.

The idea of the "Mama and Tots" program was conceived when a relative of one of our employees had a two month old baby die because the mother did not have enough breast milk. We felt awful because we would have helped if we had only known. Now we know and therefore Casa de Sion provides pregnant moms with one egg a day and prenatal vitamins.  Infants up to one year old receive infant formula and pre-school children receive a nutrient-dense soy drink called Incaparina. It doesn't seem like much, but it makes all the difference in the world to these young children.

The formula we provide to supplement breast-feeding mothers costs $20/month and it is the most expensive part of the program. This is far beyond the reach of these needy folks who subsist on $1/day. Over the last three years we have saved several infant lives and delivered many, many more from permanent retardation. 

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

We are asking for a one-time donation of $10 to help buy a two month supply of this formula. It is an easy to give on Crowdtilt, only takes minutes to do and all donations are tax-deductible.

Make a Donation on Crowdtilt today!

Please donate and help spread the word!

Thanks,

Vicki Dalia, Casa de Sion

Feinstein Foundation

Remember the Feinstein Foundation give away last year?   Mr. Feinstein is a normal guy from RI--normal with lots of money.  And every year he gives away $1 million dollars to agencies that are feeding the poor. That's us!!!  ALL money/formula that is donated to Safe Homes for Children/Casa de Sion in March and April will be counted towards this, and he will give us some of his million in proportion to the amount we have raised in these two months.  Last year we raised over $10,000 with your donations and Mr. Feinstein gave us enough to add a couple more mothers to our feeding program.

So how can you help?
DONATE!
If you are a monthly supporter who hasn't donated in a while--please now is the time to donate again.
If you were planning on donating at some point this year--please do it before the end of April.
If you donated last year but haven't given any in 2013--give during the next two weeks.
Or, if you have formula laying around--get it to me during April--I can count $1/lb (meaning if you were going to buy formula full-price, don't, just donate the amount that you where going to spend, it will count as more in this campaign and we will buy formula in Guatemala with your money.)

So use the donate button on the blog or send me a check (made out to Safe Homes for Children) 267 West Hill Rd, Stamford, CT 06902

Please pass this around to your friends, and asked them to get involved.  We will keep you up to date. on our progress again this year.

My thoughts on the book "Half The Sky"

So I have just fiinished reading "Half The Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. An amazing book that speaks to several issues very...close to my heart. One issue they repeatedly comment on is how educating girls changes countries.

Here's a quote:  "Consider the cost of allowing half a country's human resources to go untapped. Women and girls cloistered in huts, uneducated, unemployed, and unable to contribute significantly to the world represent a vast seam of human gold that is never mined." He could have been speaking of the Mayan mamas in the country of Guatemala that we serve. This is their life. But they and we want a different life for their daughters. An educated life, an employed life that contributes significantly to their community and their country. A life that is not malnourished.


We have girls that want to be educated. We have women that want to be educated. The pictures above represent some of the ones in our communities that want an education. The child in the yellow embroidered shirt is one of them. She went to 6th grade twice so she wouldn't have to quit school. Now her family can not afford to send her to middle school.

Learn how you can help.
You can send her and other girls to school by clicking on the donate button.

Thanks
Vicki, 20.vicki@gmail.com

   

Disabled in a Third World Country

Eight years ago in March, we were living in Guatemala and working on getting a permanent location. We lived just outside Antigua. One bright sunny day, my husband and I had just had a massage. Without thinking I went to walk into the 2 steps down living room to watch a movie with our kids. The steps were wood, my foot was covered in massage oil and it slid down 2 steps in between the hugh couch leg and the step. I fell and my world stood still. My ankle was so broken the joint was hanging down, kept from fallin to the floor by my skin. I screamed, the kids ran for their dad and our massage guy who was very bilingual. They loaded me into the van and we went off to experience a reoccuring nightmare I had been having for the last year. Surgery in a third world country. Luckily we were friends with the mission pres. for the Mormon church. He was called and we were told of an excellent hospital in the City for those who could pay. TTL we could pay. He also called the orthopedic doctor for the church who met us there. The doc had trained at Duke Hospital in Durham, NC, USA. I had excellent care, a 2 hour operation, a two day hospital stay and 1 month as a  disabled person in a wheelchair in a third world country. No bathrooms that my wheelchair could make it into, including the bath where we lived, a husband who was definitely not Mr. Nurturer, but a 12 year old daughter who stayed by my side and helped me a lot. I got majorly depressed because of the lack of facilities for disabled people and the fact I could not go anywhere and if I did, I was treated as subhuman. Finally we returned to the USA and even tho I had 5 more months in the wheelchair, I also had PT, handicap baths and empathy. I survived as did my marriage. I already had a lot of empathy for those disabled as my PTSD has been with me since a child, but now I had even more esp. for those in wheelcahirs.
So when the Tocayche sweetheart lady, Esmeralda, came into my life, she went straight to my heart. Disabled since birth with a low IQ, she barely walks or talks. We are helping her and her 7 year old daughter with food and we recently got her a wheelchair. When Mario took it to her, the little girl in the yellow, her daughter, cried and cried. She thought we were taking her mother away. Mario patiently [ he is so good at that] explained to her that it was to help her mom get around the house and dirt yard. Finally the child caught on and then was happy.
My next dream for Esmeralda is for her to go to PT and speech therapy in Panajachel It will cost about $40.00 a month for transport for her and her sister who will take her. Please give now so we can take her to the next step.
thanks
Vicki 20.vicki@gmail.com