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NOTES FROM DUNC'S OCTOBER 2007 TRIP
WOW! What an amazing trip I had recently, a journey of highs and lows but one of great blessing and encouragement. It was great to be accompanied by Rev.John Banner, recently retired vicar of Tunbridge Wells, who may very well write his own report on the website soon.
Seeing baby Duncan again was brilliant. Many will remember that we found Duncan a year ago in a cardboard box on the streets of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Baby Duncan is now 1 and what a bright and happy chap he is.
Everyone who has met Duncan falls in love with him as his affectionate nature and bright eyes are quite alluring. He is doing very well and enjoying all the attention her gets from the other children.
The farm is now purchased, bought by a London-
The British Ambassador to Guatemala, Mr Ian Hughes, was very excited about the farm as well as the other business ideas we have for the near future. He said that he thought what we were doing was 'an intelligent way of helping the neediest children'. Read more about the farm project here.
The new project we are supporting 'AFE' is now reaching just over 140 children a day, children who would normally be working on the city rubbish dump if it wasn't for the vision and commitment of Jeony.
Jeony, a Honduran pastor, began to help the children working and living on the rubbish dump a few years ago after visiting there one day with his young daughter to drop off some rubbish. She convinced her dad that helping the children was something she felt God was telling her they should do. And so the AFE (Faith, Hope & Love) project was founded.
I spent some time on the dump one day, coming back covered from head to foot in black soot. Even having spent a couple of years working with street kids on the dump in Guatemala, the horror and awfulness of the sight of young children scavenging through the tons of rotting rubbish is something I can never get used or will feel comfortable about. It was there I met Pollito (little chicken), pictured above with Jeony, a small boy who seemed to have a layer of dirt stuck to him like another layer of skin! The creases in his skin showed the amount of dirt that has been allowed to accumulate over time and the dismal future this young boy has is obvious to anyone who spends more than a few minutes on the dump.
The AFE project is truly inspirational and it was so rewarding to be able to hand over a large amount of money to Jeony for his work with the children, thanks to your generosity over the past few months.
Visiting the children's homes felt like a real treat after my time on the dump. Seeing the faces of kids, enjoying their new lives away from the streets, or away from abusive parents is quite humbling. To even begin to understand what some of these children have been through is enough to make you run away and cry for days. I suppose it all hit home to me, once again, when I saw Jenny (right).
Jenny was invited to sit in front of my video camera during my last trip and tell her story. It wasn't till just before this trip that I took time out to produce a short video of the three projects in Honduras, and in one of them Jenny tells how she had been given away by her mum to another lady and how this had affected her. When I was alone at home working on the video the full shock of what had happened to Jenny really hit me and made me cry. Seeing her again was another one of those reality checks, whereby something you see on the TV screen actually makes you contemplate your life and your response to other people's suffering.
I spent the whole day in the Centro Integral Children's Home, walking the kids to school, meeting their teachers and classmates, walking them back afterwards, playing with them, eating with them, enjoying hearing them sing and generally just enjoying 'their' day with them.
The home had been donated a bakers oven, an industrial mixer and many baking tins and implements for making cakes and bread. The idea was to give the home a source of income, since its regular income is so small compared to the running costs of the home. A local shop buys all the bread and cakes they are able to make and the smell of it baking was wafting throughout the home all day long. When the kids come home from school they are treated to a drink and a freshly-made cake. I had one too, it was delicious!
The Manuelito home has seen an increase in the number of children living at the home as a group of ex-
I managed to have a meeting with staff about the future of the home and the way it is being run. The home is a success story and one that has seen many kids come off the streets and begin to build a new life for themselves and call this place their home. Funds have arrived to build the home, actually two large homes, a dining room and now a computer lab. However funds are not forthcoming for the ongoing running of the infrastructure and so I was able to help them think through various strategies that will help ensure the future success of the home. I will be helping them create income generating projects as well as look for short-term funding to implement these new projects.
And last, but not least, was my highlight -
I met Rosita, aged 6, and Beteta, aged 2, on the streets one afternoon (pictured above). Their hair alive with lice and little bodies covered with sores and dirt made me want to drag them off and scrub them clean. Their mum showed little concern for their welfare and seemed oblivious, from my reckoning, to the risks associated with a life on the streets. It was another hard goodbye that night!
The following day my friends and I walked walked down the road leading to the zone 4 market and were met with shouts of glee from a group of children we had invited to the cinema again. Around 20 children had got themselves all dressed up and were waiting in line for the transport to take them to the cinema. Most of these kids are, what we call, kids at 'high risk' and some at very high risk of taking to the streets because of abuse or other reasons. Our work of prevention, I am sure, will help many of them look for alternatives rather than think that living on the streets is their only option.
I really appreciate you reading all this and for your support. I will soon be releasing the new videos of the projects, which will be available on DVD and viewable online. Your support is really making a difference and every penny you give goes directly to these projects and helps real kids. Thanks,
Duncan Dyason