Fundaninos

A little about the Orphanage visited on NYE.

Written by Vilma Beneveldt:
Fundaninos is an Christian non-profit organization and we have been working with children since the 1991. In the beginning we were as a volunteer group of the wife of the vise President Espina in 1991.We were going to the minor jail to preach and give to the children
who are there a message of hope in Jesus Christ. When the Government change we
could keep helping the new first lady because our desire was to give the a message Of
hope in Jesus Christ, He is the only one who can change one life and she was like new
age, we can´t work with that ideas. So we decide to do a preventive program that avoid the
children to go there so we began by our self in 1993 our first little….little program with
12 children. These children come from the court of minors, they are not delinquents, they
are children in high risk because the Abandoned, abuse or maltreatment that had receive
from their families, you will not believe the stories of these children. Sometimes we
think that we already see all the bad things that parents, or relatives has done to the children
until one other worse case comes. In this moment we have 55 children in the orphanages,
but we have place for around 70, we have been blessed with the help of many
Christians brothers and sisters in the construction, but our main problem is the maintenance,
people loves to build things but after this you have to feed a child and support the
children.You will love Fundaniños, children are happy……. One day I dream with a place
that the children could run, laugh and Be secure...........Vilma

Written by Andy Davies – Feb 2 ,2005

Some background on the home - its just outside Guatemala City, run by a group of women, the home is called Fundaninos. It is for orphaned street children, who are given somewhere to stay until they placed within a foster placement with a family. Some are there for a while, others not. Its hard to imagine what these kids have gone through, they are aged 0-15. There can be anything from 35 - 60 children there. And only 5 staff members, i think there will be 4 other volunteers when i am there, we share a dormitory.

2-14-05 Arrived now in San Jose, will be here for 11 weeks. Small, dusty noisy town on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Arrived at Fundaninos last night, to chaos! 35 kids here, most are young and require much attention. Last night changed my first nappy, many more to come! Kids so far are great, full of beans (literally judging from the nappy change!) and energy. As most of the kids attend school the busy times to work are 4.30am - 8am and 3.30 - 8 (they go to bed at 8). Day is only a few kids who don´t go to School to look after and loads and loads of washing! There are 7 of us at the moment so should be manageable. Most of young ones require one to one attention. so this morning played frisbee and went on the trampoline and just hugged lots of kids. Some deaf kids and learning disabled too and they are all mischievous! Nearly all have been abused and abadoned, my fave so far is a partly deaf kid, about 3, i can´t remember his name. He got boiling water poured all over him by his mum 4 days ago, but he still smiles, even though it must hurt, a lesson for us all. Am using my spanish, but it is mostly orders - don´t do that! being the one most used. Have to go now, will write more soon, Take care everyone.
General routine of a day is (when the kids are at School): Up at 4.15, throw some clothes on, get the children up, changed, showered, have breakfast, they set off to School about 6ish. Then clean the house and get the washing on, everything has to be washed every day, there is so much of it! This is my least favourite part of the day! This morning i spent an hour unblocking two toilets! I also find it tough forcing a child into the shower, when they are crying their eyes out, its not something that would be all that accepatable in the u.k., but here its fine. And i kind of agree, the children need showering every day. Then get the other children up, changed and showered. Then sleep for a bit if you get chance, and chill out for the day. At 3.30 it goes a bit manic again, when the children come back from School and need help with homework and supervising during play, this part of the day is great! Dinner at 6 and then the little ones get taken to bed, usually by about 7.30 they are all in bed. Standards of hygeine are completely different to home, i can´t say more in this journal though! Our house is o.k. but no doors inside, even on the toilet! Which takes time to get used to! There is a curtain there though. But we really have evrything we need, three meals a day, a bed, a roof, clean water. You just become accustomed to it. Write more next week, Take care everyone.
Sat 19.02.05 The orphange is very isolated. Its 30 min walk from the town, and is set in a valley. It has a dusty track which links it to the town. No neighbours to speak off and there is a wall to stop people getting in or out. In the day the orphanage has no car or money, we often get asked to pay for things the home needs. The boss won´t let us use the tumble dryer to dry the kids uniform, because he says it costs too much money!! So when there is no sun the kids will have a wet uniform to put on. We are now down to 5 of us, two more to come on Monday. The constant changing in group dynamics is interesting and i think we all find it difficult. So today we decided to take the kids (who are responsible enough) up the nearest mountain. The weekends i prefer because its a later start and then all the kids are there not just the non school ones. We bought cookies and water and had a picnic with them at the top of the mountain. You could look down and see Fundaninos, San Jose and mountains and volcanoes in the background, awesome view and hopefully some good photos. They absolutely loved climbing the mountain, being so isolated and not going out i think they all appreciated it. It took an hour to climb, so more of a hill, not a mountain. It was great to see the kids looking out for each other, working as a group and the big kids helping the little ones. At the top we saw a cow and the kids just loved seeing it. To be so close to an animal is something they just dont experience. They all tried to touch it, it was just interested in the food. Then it gave a really loud moo, and an eruption of laughter followed! The descent was also a bit hary (though not in comparison to Pacaya!). One of the other volunteers slipped and slid on her bum for about 5 metres and ripped a large hole in her trousers. The kids took great delight in telling the story when we returned! Sun 20.02.05 Movie day. We all chipped in a and got some movies for the kids - Shrek 2, in Spanish, so hard to understand it! And Lord of the Rings, which i didn´t watch. The kids liked both. And popcorn (poporopa in Spanish). I had the fun of supervising the little ones while the rest watched LOR. It was o.k. just lots of tantrems that i didn´t understand. My Spanish is not really improving, its probably got worse since Antigua, i mainly talk in English to the other volunteers and just use Spanish for commands with the children. Its not possible to have a conversation with the kids, because they talk to fast and i don´t understand what they are saying! We have a multi lingual volunteer here, which really helps, so he often translates. He has a much better relationship with the older kids because he can converse. I find it frustrating that i cannot do the same. Thats all for now, Take care.
Every day at 3.30 we need to wash the school clothes and get them dry for the next day. We have been using the tumble dryer as they are never dry in time. The boss here does not like us using the tumble dryer as it costs too much money to use. At the weekend he removed it, i thought to his house. On Monday at 7, we asked initially to use the tumble dryer, he told us that this was not possible and we needed to iron the clothes dry! He said that it was Claudia{s responsibility, not ours, but she already works every day all day and only has Saturday off to study. To me this was unreasonable so i went and showed him how wet a shirt was. He was not happy with this at all! He then went and spoke to Claudia, the end result being a very upset Claudia and no solution to the problem, as he had sold the dryer! I asked him what he is going to do when thw winter comes and it rains, he is going to look for another one. Its hard to understand the logic, because we now use three irons to dry the clothes and it takes an hour, which surely uses more electricity. I don't understand his logic. For me running a place like this should be simple , you put the kids needs first. How does it ever get more complicated than that? Somewhere along the line it has. At first i thought i had made a hugh error of judgement because i had caused more trouble. But actually i am glad i said something. Our current thinking of a solution is to buy 20 new school shirts then we won't have to dry them. Also today - helped with homework. One kid had to draw his family. He had to make it up, it was a reminder how tough it is for them. Imagine having to do that? Making up parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents. He didn't seem to think it was odd though. Most kids have potential adoption parents here, its just that the adoption process takes so long. I think 3-4 years to adopt, so i have been told. Most understand that they are going to be going somewhere to get the attention and care they need. Its funny because some of the kids speak good english. If you ask them a question in Spanish, they answer in English. If you ask them why they want to learn English, they tell you because they want to get adopted! They are only young, 4-15, but they understand the way the world works and adults already. One girl of 4 asked one of the volunteers to adopt her! How many 4 year old kids in the world know the verb for to adopt!

Scatter Christ
Lisa