Sponsor's update from San Jeronimo, Guatemala

Child sponsorship update from the SOS Children's Village San Jeronimo, Guatemala from Summer 2008.

Dear Friends:

It is a pleasure for me to send you my greetings again from the beautiful land of Baja Verapaz in Guatemala, and specially on behalf of the children and youth as well as all the co workers of the SOS Children's Village of San Jerónimo, we hope you and your families are doing fine.

I want to let you know that this year has been a bit different for us as when the time passes by, we are able to see how the children have grown, and on January a second transfer of youth to the Youth Community took place. So 6 young men started this new stage of their life, so we have a total of 13 boys that live in the youth community and they all study and learn a technical job, and some of them are still studying high school, they all are 15 to 19 years of age. The youth Community has 3 years of operating and it is at 10km from the SOS Children's Village San Jerónimo at a small town called Salamá.

On January the Youth Community for girls also started operations, and now 10 young ladies from 15 to 17 years of age are living in the youth community and at the same time are studying high school and their house is here in San Jerónimo, which makes visiting and taking care of them and their behavior much easier. The relationship with their SOS families is very good, they participate in the activities that their families plan and the mothers go to the Youth communities to visit them and to celebrate important dates as birthdays. With these transfers our total population in the SOS Children's Village is 84 children.

I would also like to tell you that we started the renovation of two houses in order to use them as houses for two new families and be able to serve more children, and with that we will have the capacity of 108 children.

In March two important situations took place: one was to see how the SOS families organised themselves to go out on a trip on summer vacation, one group went to an aquatic park named Valle Dorado which is at 180kms from the Village and the other group went to Puerto Barrios which is at 450 kms from the Village and visited Castillo San Felipe (San Felipe Castle) and Río Dulce, (a river) which flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The other very important situation is that 2 SOS aunts graduated as SOS mothers they were Herlinda Teyul from family 6 and Nicolasa Tahuico from family 8; it was a very special moment for them, the children and for all SOS co workers.

As you can remember in my last letter I told you about the soccer team of the Village which is participating in a local championship. This year the team was the champion and all the SOS mothers, children and my self felt very proud of them and their efforts. They won every game and Pablo received a trophy for the best scorer in the championship and Fernando received the recognition for best goalkeeper so the children took all the prices.

I believe that my words would never be enough to explain you how I honestly thank you for the support given to the children in order to give them the opportunity to an integral development and to have a dignified place to grow, therefore I wish you many blessings and that God multiplies everything to you and your beloved ones.

Sincerely yours,

Byron Arriola Monasterio
Village Director
San Jerónimo