A thin film of dust covers the table in a grayish overcoat. Lydia drags her finger through it emphatically to claim ownership of at least half the table with a capital L. She sits back, looking very pleased with herself. Contently, she looks up at Lucy, but Lucy is not amused. Since they started building the second floor on the orphanage, the chaos in Lucy’s life has multiplied beyond belief.
Under normal circumstances, it is not easy to run a home where eight women try desperately to assert their authority, while over twenty toddlers are engaged in a continuous competition to demand as much individual attention as they would have received in a small nuclear family. Now, on top of that, she has to endure the whining resonance of drills and the incessant shower of gravel and sand, and it sometimes seems as if she is literally buried under the heaps of rubbish that renovation often causes.
On the contrary, the mess is what keeps her going. The sweet mental image of the moment when she receives the key to her new domain gives her wings and in one determined sweep she wipes all the dust off the table. Lydia isn’t pleased. She was proud of her personalized L and fears for her territory.
Then Ana strolls in, with the stately bearing of a Grand Mother and enveloped by the natural authority of the one who has the last word. Delighted, Lydia jumps from her chair, wraps herself around Ana’s left leg, and brags that she can climb the stairs.
“Without my hands too! Wanna see?”
This is because only they who know how to mount the stairs will be allowed to move to those seemingly unattainable bathrooms with little dolphins on the walls and those brand new bunk beds with a real steel ladder to climb all the way up. Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to live there?
Proniño too is going through exciting times. For the briefest of moments, Concepción timidly looks around, then braces himself, rises, and finally stands to speak. In front of him are sixty children, the entire Proniño board, twenty intimidating white foreigners; and even the lights and eyes of a television crew are pointed directly at him. At him!
Four years ago, he had recently arrived at Proniño and just turned ten. He had never been to school and didn’t like life too much, really. His dad was gone, his mother dead, his littler brothers a burden. Now, he is chairing the student board. A group of Americans are here this week, to start an agriculture project with the children. Food production will reduce costs and offer the children an education. Being serious Americans, they have even plucked an authentic expert of tropical agriculture from his university stool to guide this motley group of young and less young people through the joyful secrets of gardening.
But the rising stars are the children, and right now Concepción especially so. He and six others have been elected to the student board and tonight they present their findings. Somewhere in the back of his head he regrets that he performed so well during the last rehearsal, because that is what inspired those insane foreigners to call in a television crew, in their blind enthusiasm. He, Concepción, son of the streets, suddenly arisen as a worthy human being in front of an audience of a hundred souls, and on top of that an entire city of television spectators. Some surely will remember him from the dark days, when he begged for food and stank of sweat, and of urine too. Now Proniño’s reputation lies in his own hands.
The other children are beaming with a delicious mixture of pride and jealousy; the Americans collectively hold their breath. They are the first people who ever offered him their trust, he must succeed for them. But even more so for himself.
He speaks clearly, looks his public in the eye, and tells his tale. One after another, the remaining board members deliver the same performance, faultless, or almost anyway. The boys radiate, the other children clap their hands wildly, and here and there an American openly weeps a tear or two, of relief and gratitude.
Today is the seed of Concepción’s tomorrow and of a better future for his littler brothers. Tomorrow, Proniño can become adult.
In the nutrition center on the other hand, the atmosphere is less optimistic. Recently, Yolanda was brought in. Like any other newly admitted child, she was lethargic and severely malnourished. But Yolanda’s case is different. What they feared was true. Yolanda had been abused. When her brother came to visit, Yolanda yelled hysterically; she hid behind a stool and frantically tried to shield herself with her little hands. Yolanda is four, her brother twelve. She has syphilis and a broken finger that was never cared for. It healed, but in an awkward angle, making it look pathetic and totally useless.
Not long ago, the juvenile judge noted worriedly that she had accumulated ten un-resolved files of abused girls on her desk within a week. For them, there is no place. Too old at age eleven, too abused, too hopeless, and too female. Myrian was pregnant by her father at age nine and so daddy became his own child’s grandfather. The man was never tried. Now Myrian lives with her mother but isn’t safe. When will daddy become a grandfather again?
Two years ago Proniño built a dormitory for girls with Homeless Child. It was too early. No funds for specialized care, too few resources for food, education and health care, and indeed there was hardly enough money to develop the boy’s program. And to throw out the boys, obviously would not be appropriate.
Fortunately much progress has been made. The dormitory is to be used for a new phase in the improved boys program and will be extremely useful. But what about the girls?
Yolanda and Myrian have a dream. To realize it, we need money, a lot of money. And time, and knowledge. A no small amount of luck. But you can buy time, gain knowledge and luck is something that naturally comes your way when you are on the right path. In the next year and a half we will not carry out any large projects but use our funds to help further develop the existing programs.
At the same time, we will look for the right local partners, seek solid relationships with local authorities, try to find experts for the much needed knowledge, and raise money in the Netherlands and elsewhere to realize that dream: a girls’ home. For Yolanda, for Myrian. But also for a worthy future and a just world. A world for them, for you. A world that includes all of us.
Give a child a chance, and offer the world some balance!
Some names are changed and the abused girls do not appear on the pictures. The El Progreso juvenile judge has no jurisdiction to decide about the nine-year-old pregnant girl’s destiny, the girl lives in a neighboring city. If you wish to help us realize our dream, that is maybe also yours, we invite you to think, work and share with us. In July 2007, Honduras was severely criticized by the International Committee for Children’s Rights (United Nations, Geneva). Several local organizations consider appealing to more international bodies to pressurize the Honduran government to improve the care for their youngest citizens and to respect the various treaties for children’s rights that the government has signed. Homeless Child will support such an initiative with word and deed.
As I said in my last message, nothing has changed in the use of your donations, 100% of the money is still donated to the projects in Honduras.
