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Home  Photos Chiapas |
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 Clic here, or scroll down to see the photos.First Expedition to Chiapas and Northern Guatemala Chiapas, although abounding in natural resources, is one of the poorest States in Mexico, with the largest number of Indigenous tribes living below the poverty level. Our Book Sponsorship Program took us there right after Christmas 2004, with 1000 “Stories to Grow By” children’s books, and hundreds of inspirational Activated magazines and motivational posters to distribute to the poorest children of the State. In conjunction with local groups, medical doctors and hospitals, we were able to organize 10 distributions in the 10 days we visited. Our programs took us to: ** Tuxla Gutteriez Central Jail: a most unusual jail, where the families of the prisoners come and spend the week-end with their imprisoned loved ones, and where the inside of the prison is like an autonomous town, comprising shops, restaurants, arts and crafts, churches, etc. and unfortunately, a lot of drugs and crime as well. There, we found people craving for drops of encouragement, truth and love. All the way to the severe entrance guards. One of them, whose job was to perform a body search on us to make sure we didn’t bring in any illicit items, ended up breaking down in tears, asking us for counsel and prayer as she had just lost a loved one. ** In Northern Guatemala, we held a program in HueHuetenango, a town whose appropriate logo, displayed on a sign board at the entrance, was: “The People who read make progress”. The town hosted a central market for surrounding villages and communities the day we visited, and a number of Indigenous Indians from nearby tribes joined our presentation and received the books as well. ** Near San Cristobal de las Casas we did a distribution in an Indigenous town. We had planned 150 books for this community, but as our visit was being heralded on speakers broadcasting all over town, we watched in awe as Indigenous children, mostly dressed in rags, started to flock towards us from every directions. Fifteen minutes later, close to 500 children of all ages surrounded us, silently staring at us with expectant faces. Thankfully, we were able to leave each one with a present, a book, a poster, or a magazine, although the sheer number of children gave way to a bit of a chaotic distribution, but all in good spirits, and everyone had lots of fun. ** We held distributions in 2 orphanages, a “comedor” and 2 very poor neighborhoods near Tuxla Gutteriez ** We visited a free hospital for Indigenous Indians in San Cristobal de las Casas, and a dental clinic providing free treatment to the poor in Tuxla and left a stack of books in both places to distribute to their needy patients. Everywhere we went, people begged us to come back again, with more inspirational and educational material. Our 1000 books were a drop in an ocean of need, but even this drop will help enhance young neglected lives. This year, we hope, with your kind help and support to be able to go back with at least 5000 books. Second expedition in Chiapas in 2004, over 8,000 children’s books distributed for free! Half a ton of books (29 boxes) shipped for free! Thanks to our generous sponsors, we had more than 7,000 educational story books, coloring books, children’s magazines, activity pages, posters, music CDs etc. and just needed to find the right avenues to distribute them. One of the SAB program’s policies is that we like to personally give the books to the recipients, be they children or their teachers, to ensure that they reach their designated targets. While doing the preparations for the trip we were a little concerned about logistics. But as soon as we started our preparation, the doors started to open on every side, and for the duration of our trip they continued to open wide and miraculously. A shipping company granted us free shipping for almost half a ton of books. In San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, a government clinic we had contacted beforehand provided us with a van, a chauffeur, a doctor, a social worker and a native Indianacting as liaison between the clinic and the communities for 3 full days, taking us to various communities every day. Distributions were held in 14 Indian communities, including 2 communities Zapatistas Every day we held distributions programs in the schools of the various Indigenous communities we visited. Some were big structured schools counting hundreds of children, others were small informal schools with only one teacher for all the grades, ranging from 16 to 50 students in remote villages. As we learned more about the Indian communities, we realized that the Zapatistas were the most needy, as their political stand prevents them from receiving any government help. We wanted to be able to visit them, and again the door flung and we were invited to join a medical mission belonging to a private foundation going on a 2-day trip to 2 remote communities Zapatistas in the “Autonomous territories”. While their team attended to the medical needs of the locals, we attended to the educational needs of the children, holding meetings and book distributions. In total, we visited and held book distributions in in 3 orphanages, 13 schools, 3 clinics and 14 Indigenous communities. A total of about 2,000 children received a variety of sponsored educational material and each school teacher was the recipient of their own collection of teaching material. The reactions ranged from overwhelmed thankfulness to incredulity: “Is this really for me? For free?” And yes it was, thanks to all of you who helped with sponsorships! Our distributions were interactive: in each location, we lay all the material on a table (as many as 17 different books), and after giving and introduction to the program and explaining what every book was about, we let each child choose for himself or herself 3 or 4 books. It was a lengthy process (especially in the school with 450 students!), but well worth it to promote a personal contact with the children, and to encourage their participation. Their elated smiles and excited reactions to the books more than made up for the time invested. |
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