Her smile speaks volumes: Yuliza is a happy girl! She has a rather good reason for it as well; today was her first day in school. Not just any school either. Yuliza has been officially registered as a pupil of El Progreso’s most palatial centre of learning. She’s being taught in English, classes are small and they even have a basketball court with those funny little rings through which one has to throw a ball.
If things carry on like this, she will soon be able to teach English to the orphanage staff, and tell all the other children in her neighborhood about that fancy new sport that hardly anyone in her town has heard of: basketball. Who would have ever imagined all that, when a mere three years ago Yuliza was carried into the nutrition center; an emaciated toddler, her tiny body ravaged by famine, her skin wrinkled from dehydration. Her own mother had come to bring her in. She was devastated, filled with desolation, and if she had waited two more days, Yuliza would have died.
The El Progreso nutrition center was founded many years ago by the Catholic Church. Severely malnourished infants and toddlers are being cared for until they have gained sufficient strength to keep going under their own steam. They are being brought in via the local hospital, neighborhood clinics, and deeply ashamed mothers. That’s why Yuliza’s mother only showed up when her despair overcame her feelings of shame. Why should she feel ashamed? Because she didn’t have the means to provide her child with a daily meal? Because she never attended school and is unable to read the instructions on the milk powder can?
Yuliza was lucky. Not only did her health improve enormously in a short time, the judge also decided that she was to be placed in the orphanage. Because so many children are returned to the nutrition center in a state of neglect only months after they first left, it was decided to get a better grasp on the matter.
The mother, father, or another family member is held responsible for the wellbeing of their own child. Each responsible person is expected to assist at least one day a week in the feeding, changing and care program of all babies and also to attend information meetings about hygiene, malnourishment and child-care. Through this fantastic initiative, ignorance is replaced by knowledge, distance becomes involvement, and finally shame can give way to pride.
But this doesn’t always suffice. Sometimes there are no parents, and no family member who is willing or able to care for the child. Sometimes, a mother is only just about thirteen years old and utterly incapable of caring for her own baby. And sometimes it is just a horrible set of circumstances that can determine people’s fate only in extremely poor nations. This was the case for Yuliza’s mother, who, although pregnant at the immature age of fifteen, did have a boyfriend who was truly determined to care for them.
Then Mitch, the infamous hurricane, came to call and took the lives of ten thousand people in it’s wake, leaving a hundred thousand more without shelter. The boyfriend died, Yuliza’s mum was homeless, and two months later her son Ricardo was born with no father, and nowhere to live.
Ever since, things have continued on a downward path. How can you care for your baby son, if you have no place to live, have never learned to write, and are too penniless to buy food? Even before Yuliza was born, her half-brother Ricardo was being rushed into the nutrition center. He had caught cholera, when he was washed in infected wastewater. He too received great care and soon gained strength, but at that time the orphanage did not exist, and so he finally ended up on the streets, where food was more easily found than at mum’s.
Fortunately, Yuliza doesn’t realize all this. To prevent children from leaving the nutrition center only to end up in the street, the El Progreso Catholic Church opened an orphanage two years ago. Almost half their donations are local, an impressive achievement in a country as poor as Honduras, and proof of the active involvement of Yuliza’s co-citizens. Often, the small deeds of many lead to large changes.
Yuliza’s education doesn’t come cheap; she attends a private school usually reserved for the wealthier kids in town. In fact, Yuliza wouldn’t have been able to go there at all if it weren’t for the school’s generous decision to admit her and all the other orphanage children at half price. The other half is paid for by American donors. That is why she now smiles so broadly! Well, of course, she doesn’t know about the donors, or even that it actually costs money to attend a school, because those things aren’t at all important when you’ve just turned six.
Yuliza smiles for her brand new pink backpack that brightly shines on her shoulders, and for the magnificent pencil, smelling of fresh lead and it’s fragrant shavings, with which she learned to gracefully write her first English word this morning: ‘welcome’. Pronunciation isn’t her greatest strength yet, but being surrounded by foreign volunteers, she’ll certainly be speaking better English than even her wealthiest classmates soon enough!
By now, her older brother Ricardo is doing significantly better too. Ricardo has had a hard time. At first, finding money was easy. Virtually everyone was willing to give a coin or two for such a sweet little face. But living alone on the streets is terrifying indeed when you’re still so small. A friend showed him how to sniff glue. It makes you high; screaming hunger cramps are temporarily silenced, and you’re not afraid of anything, not even adults!
But one thing leads to another. When you sniff glue, you need more money, and it doesn’t really do anything for the innocent cuteness of your face either. Soon enough, Ricardo had to steal to satisfy his need for drugs. He needed food less and less. In the end he was caught. Fortunately he wasn’t sent to prison. The judge put him with Proniño, the street children’s program in El Progreso, only kilometers away from his smaller sister Yuliza’s orphanage.
Ricardo doesn’t attend his sister’s private school; both he and his friend have lost too much precious time for that. Most of these kids have suffered so many traumas of abuse and despair in the streets that they need a year anyway, just to get back on their feet and learn to see the bright side of life again. But now, Ricardo too can smile and in his case it’s not just an ordinary smile. He has had to work harder for it than anyone, but now he sometimes doubles up with delight. The innocent sweetness has returned to his face, and when you see him going about so cheerfully at Proniño, you would almost forget that only recently he was still on drugs. Who knows, maybe Ricardo himself will forget that episode one day too, or at least be able to consign them to memory.
Thankfully, there is so much generosity in the world. Without the dedication of staff and volunteers, Yuliza and Ricardo would have been condemned to an early death. Without the donations of their co-citizens and unknown foreigners from distant, mysterious lands, they wouldn’t be able to eat, let alone receive an education. For however young they may be, Yuliza and Ricardo have learnt one thing very well: being able to give is a much bigger gift than being in need to receive.
Yuliza dreams of being an English teacher one day and to teach her own mother to write, and maybe even help her find a job. Ricardo? He dreams of becoming a fireman, and of course of buying a house to live with Yuliza and their mum. Seeing their smiles is enough to make you want to help them to make their dreams come true
Give a child a chance, and offer the world some balance!
