Sunday, March 22, 2009

Stories from the inside (2)

As I commented on a previous post, there are lots of stories inside the community and with this post I’ll comment on a few more.

The Origin

This great solidarity work started after a regrettable event. Miguel Rodriguez, founder of the community, suffers the loss of his third son, only four months old. This event changed his whole life perspective.

Miguel
, although he had just lost his third son, realized that around him were many other children, most of them living in the streets, that could be saved from the suffering of starvation, give them shelter and protect them from the weather. He then decided he would not allow any other kid to die like his own and directed all his energy towards helping the children in the streets.

At first he managed to combine his job as a news director with his job feeding, healing and sheltering the children of the street, but soon the latter became his sole dedication. He left his job and moved to a piece of land donated in the desert (in the location of Ventanilla, in the outskirts of Lima). He did this along with his wife, his two remaining biological kids and 50 of his “street children”.

Little by little and with a great effort he started making possible the building of the first humble rooms for the children as well as the first shops that would allow, besides teaching them an occupation, the generation of some income for the daily support of the community. The first shop created was dedicated to pastry making and birthday cakes. These days were critical and in some cases they had to work all day long to have enough cakes to sell on the streets and generate enough for the food of the day.

In 1988 they organize as a non-profit organization and name themselves as Comunidad de Niños La Sagrada Familia (trasnlated as The Sacred Family Children’s Community) and since then they have been helping thousands of children to grow up and become a positive influence on today’s peruvian society.

Overcoming adversity

She is Sonia, has 19 years old and lives in the community since she was 12. She arrived when the police brought her out of the streets after having escaped from her house in Cusco. Her father abandoned them when she was only 3 and her alcoholic mother wasn’t able to take care of her so she decided to come to Lima on her own. Today, after 7 years living in the community, she’s a university student, speaks perfect english, hopes to finish her administration career and start producing in the society. In her own words, the community has changed her live and has given her new reasons to be a better person and think in the future.

Stories like this one are possible thanks to the aid of the community, all the people volunteering and working in it and the many more that anonymously support them. Be a part of this, help the community!

The story of Alberto is another one of the many existing and it’s a good example of the goodness this community does on the children’s life. He was found on the streets with a sprained elbow supported by an improvised sling provided by his street friends. At a very short age, only 7, he was forced by his own father to go in the streets and sell candy. He sang and sold candy on buses while he improvised music with seashells. One day that he was very hungry he made the “huge mistake” of eating the daily share of candy instead of selling it so he wasn’t able to bring back home his daily share of money. This was enough to unleash his father’s fury and twist his arm until his elbow was sprained, along with some other blows and hits. After this, he decided to leave his house and preferred the streets. He was lucky enough to be found after only a few days, his wounds were taken care of and he was taken to the community. He was hosted for more than 10 years and although today he has already left the community, he’s now a young university student struggling to keep up his grades and maintain the scholarship he obtained.

Let us help children like Alberto that from a young age struggle and fight to get ahead despite the many obstacles life has placed on their path.

This young woman is 22 years old and arrived to the community when she was only 11. Her childhood was traumatic. Forced to go out and sell candy she returned home every day only to be raped by her own father since she was 8. At age 11 she was rescued by the community and since then she lives there with the “approval” of her father. She even went a few years after and rescued her sister so now they both live in the community. Luisa is about to finish her career in tourism and she is an official and registered English translator thanks to the support of the many foreign volunteers that come to help in the community.

On the words of Miguel, founder and director of the community, she’s a very smart girl and might even be the future director of the shelter, something that she’d love to do in the future.

We can also be a part of these stories. Stories filled with hope and success against adversity for thousands of other kids. Let’s make success stories like Sonia’s, Alberto’s or Luisa’s become not an exception but, hopefully, a more common one.


Despite not being able to be physically present on the community, we can all help out from home donating for them and making sure this noble deed continues and grows even larger in the years to come.



Our goal: their future











* The real names and pictures of the persons the stories talk about have been changed to preserve confidentiality

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