Sponsor's update from Santa Ana, El Salvador

Child sponsorship update from the SOS Children's Village Santa Ana, El Salvador from Winter 2008

Dear friends,

Once again receive a warm greeting from El Salvador and specially from the children of the SOS Children’s Village Santa Ana. It is a pleasure for us to greet you in this season of the year to let you know more about the lives of the families and the daily life in the village. We hope you enjoy reading and knowing more about the activities and events of this year 2008.

This year we started with a population of 127 boys and girls but we have grown since then, now we have 16 houses with 74 boys and 67 girls. The adaptation of the new children was difficult and we needed to create supporting plans with the SOS mothers and educational advisors. All the difficulties were overcome and now they are happy and attending classes, playing and having fun; Josue is the little one in the group, he was taken to the village with one month of age and his two brothers Vladimir of 3 and Enrique of 7. All of them are growing and receiving a lot of care and love by their SOS mother, Tere.

Besides, we work on different areas such as good habits acquisition, improving or recovering their health and nutrition care. In more than 95% of the cases our work is concentrated on providing the children an easier way to become adapted to school, and to create the family environment among he or she and the family group from which they will be part. In some special cases, we have had to look for some rehabilitation centres’ support, due to the physical handicap of some boys and girls, so it was absolutely necessary to lean on another type of professionals to help us in language and psychomotor therapy that have enhanced some skills and language progress in the first years. Some children have problems to become adapted but almost in six months they identify with the figure that the SOS mothers represent and also with their family group. The support that the community give to the children is very important and most of all, the time and love that they share with them in order to accomplish the stability of these boys and girls with the family model.

The academic development of the children was excellent this year because 95.61% pass the school year. 9 of them got the first place and 4 the second place. Maria de los Angeles is an excellent student. During the last five year she got the first place in her school. Jose was granted a scholarship for the period of 2009 to 2013 by one of the prestigious school in his area. Jose Fernando and Ismenia despite their learning problems and behavior could get the third place in their school with the help of their SOS mother and teachers; the two of them were involved in small development project in the school and were nominated team leaders for various youth groups.

Children's activities at Santa Ana

More than 25 children participated in different vocational workshops such as: sewing, industrial mechanics, carpentry, etc. and all completed their courses successfully. Yesenia, Raquel and Sonia, participated in an exposition of carpentry and were given diplomas of merit for their work. Manuel was second place for the best carpentry learner which resulted in a job opportunity for him. Mario learned sewing techniques and confectioned the graduation suits of his classmates. Most of the children have been involved in sport, cultural and religious activities, contributing to their emotional stability. This year more than 50% of boys and girls have practiced swimming, 20% of them have achieved very satisfactory goals in minor competitions, winning 2nd and 3rd place, also 60% of the children play soccer. We have participated in protection campaigns of childhood rights with the involvement of boys and girls in the voluntary fire department. They have been in training during the year developing abilities and skills, also learning useful knowledge for the community. They have been training in first aids, fire prevention and environment protection courses, in which they participated at national level.

We co-ordinated with local institutions agreements to give to our children workshops on education and personal development. Among other courses were: HIV, early pregnancy of youth, intra-familiar violence, mental health, diseases of sexual transmission, gangs and drogues, and self-esteem. Each group had between fifteen and twenty children. In addition, 18 children were trained on planting crops. The harvest was the most significant part for them because they distributed for each of their SOS families.

In October we celebrate the Children’s Day with the help of UNICO (Catholic University of the West by its acronyms in Spanish) and the Association for Recreational Parks of Galicia. All children had a big time playing with the clown, dancing and eating candies. The children and their SOS mothers visited the national museum and the archeological park Tazumal in Chalchuapa city. It was wonderful to see them enjoying and learning our culture.

Skills for the future

We still have the two SOS Youth Facilities, one for young women and the other for young men. At this moment, we have planned to transfer seven youth, four girls and three boys, from their houses to the SOS Youth Facilities. This is a process that can be a little hard for some of them, specially because they have to leave their SOS families. This is a radical change in their lives and they learn to be more responsible and to start to make their own decisions. During the whole process they receive the support of their SOS mother and of the SOS youth leader that lives with them in the SOS Youth Facility. It is at this point of their lives that they start looking for their part-time jobs so they can start to build their future and their patrimony.

Gloria works in a bookstore that distributes pedagogical materials; Karina and Cecilia work in a store that sells youth clothing. The 3 of them have full time jobs. Silvia, despite her difficulties with her vision, passed to ninth grade and wants to work and start looking towards her future stability. Sandra studies and works part time and this helped her to improve her personal development. The twins Julio and Noe finished their first year of high school. They work part time in one of the biggest supermarkets in the area. Jonathan finished his ninth grade, he works part time and his vision is to open a business at the end of the high school. Gionvanni also works part time and all finished successfully their school year.

We are happy to tell you that in the month of May two SOS aunts were named SOS mothers and at the end of the year another two aunts are going to become SOS mothers. They have finished their monographic work satisfactorily obtaining good grades. There are two more aunts that will start their third level to become SOS mothers, we are very proud of them.

In our work team there is a psychologist who have been working initially with a diagnosis of the families involved, which will allow her to give support to the different families and improve the total development of the boys and girls, as well as we are supporting the young people’s companion which is for youths older than 12 years.

We are glad to share with you all these achievements and good results of our programmes. We are very happy and thankful to you for your help and support that make us possible to give our children a family with love, respect and security. Thank you for making all this possible may God bless you always. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Yours sincerely,

Norma Elizabeth de Herrera, Village Director, SOS Children’s Village Santa Ana & Vanessa María Carballo Bolaños, International Sponsorships Coordinator, SOS Children El Salvador