25 November 2009

CS - Last Milk Day of 2009!!!

Greetings from our team in what is the last Milk Day of 2009 and a very exciting time for our Child Sponsorship team. In keeping with the rush of the holiday season, this has been a bustling time for all. This week is MPI's 5 year Nicaraguan site reunion in which our house has been stormed by PDs of years past. They come bearing stories and passions for MPI which have already served as a reminder to many of us of why we decided to join this organization. Moreover, they will be key participants in an upcoming field trip we are taking with the children in our program. This Friday, after the old PDs return to Chureca to re-visit old friends, we will be taking the mothers and children in a big yellow bus out to a nearby laguna for an afternoon of relaxation in the fresh countryside. I am excited to spend time with the mothers and children away from the smoke of Chureca, and I am especially interested to learn how to watch 50 or so children who have almost no swimming experience dive into a lake...this is going to be interesting. Thank goodness we'll have the old PDs here for lifeguard/play duty! From what I've heard, most will be too scared of the water to get too deep...but the fresh, cool water will be a wonder for all.

Milk Day, the past two days, has been very exciting as we are able to graduate 5 children from our program! This means that they will be moving to "level two" in which they slowly transition away from receiving the vitamins, milk, and oatmeal in order to see if they can maintain a healthy weight on their own. The mothers were excited to hear that their children have reached a healthy weight.

The following week is sure to be jam-packed as we have a visitor bringing clothing for a sale for the mothers as well as catered food to host a Christmas party! It's sure to be a "Feliz Navidad!"

Hooray for a year well-spent. Thank you again for your thoughtful donations that allow so many lives to be changed.

Best,
Child Sponsorship

19 November 2009

November News

Last week, we very very excited to have three volunteer consultants visit our clinic to analyze operations and ways to improve. Their presence allowed us to engage in stimulating conversation on the clinic, child sponsorship, and opportunities to strengthen the services the clinic offers to the community in La Chureca.


As far as team CS goes, we’ve had a few illnesses in the Manna House over the past few weeks, changing up how we’ve been doing our home visits. Thus, last week I visited families with Ian. It was great to have his perspective as we checked in with various community members. Ian, who is in charge of fundraising, normally has a very autonomous position within our team, allowing him to visit with various community partners while the rest of us home visit. He has formed strong relationships with many of the children through his visits to the local school, Esperanza, where he also visits with school leaders to coordinate aspects of our work with what is going on in the school. An unexpected highlight of walking around with Ian last week was the discovery of the birth of a litter of puppies at Mariana’s house. The new pups crawled playfully about as we visited with Mariana’s mother and her three younger sisters. One of our hopes for the future of the program is that we can begin to enter siblings of current children into our program; we believe that by targeting siblings of current participants, we can see substantial growth for families in La Chureca.


Yesterday, our weekly charla at 9am heralded some exciting announcements. For one, our next Milk Day will be the following week, Tuesday and Wednesday. We were excited by the fact that all of the mothers have had better attendance overall during the last month of charlas and will be able to benefit fully from the upcoming Milk Day. Also, I announced the upcoming “field trip” we will be taking the children on next week the day after Thanksgiving. With a Nicaragua Program Director reunion to take place over the holiday weekend, we will all be taking the families in our program to a nearby laguna to relax and play in the cool water. The charla yesterday concerned “Community Improvement” and “Hygiene” and was given by Esmerelda, the nurse, using posters from the Ministry of Education. She spoke upon house clean and hygiene as ways to prevent disease, and the mothers actively commented throughout the charla.


Stay tuned for more updates...and MILK DAY!


Best,


Child Sponsorship

09 November 2009

Last Week - surprises!

With half of the Manna House participating in community home-stays last week, I am just now posting the Chureca update. Last week was a week of surprises! For one, on Tuesday, we were surprised to arrive at the clinic and find all of our mothers there to receive a gift of food from a visiting organization. With the benefit of this centrality, we were able to stay near the clinic and use the morning as a chance to play with the children and get to know the families in a more casual setting than our weekly "official" house visits. The new phrase I learned in the week previous provided very useful: "Llevame en tuto" or "Carry me on your shoulders" was requested repeatedly. On Wednesday, our visiting doctors lead a charla on sexual health which all of the children's mothers participated in actively. The very professional and fluent doctors were able to engage the mother's interest while providing enlightening information. The final surprise occurred on Thursday morning. I was in my home-stay when I received a call from the Manna House telling me we'd have to cancel the home visits due to the impending hurricane about to hit Nicaragua. Although the brunt of the hurricane was to fall on the opposite side (East Coast) of Nicaragua, there was a severe storm warning for Managua. The roads in and around Chureca can become impassible during torrents of rain, and this unfortunately this lead us to abandon our usual visit. However, it is fortunate that everyone stayed safe, and Managua remained unharmed by the storms other than some rain. Now everyone is geared up to get back to work this week! Stay tuned for more updates.