How Do You Find the Women You Help?
“A proposal: Widow: Maria Juarez. Her daughter’s name is Catarina and she also has a son. I am including some of my photos of her and her daughter. And she is struggling hard so that they can continue to study. I have seen a document that she showed me that show that her husband died 5 years ago. She is working hard, and she is selling fruits, she does not have a shop. According what a friend has told me she does not receive any help at all. She does not owe her own land. Neither the metal shelter you can see in my photos is hers; she is paying a rent to have the permission to live there with her daughter and son. Maria’s parents have both died. You can see in my photos how small their home is. As I have understood so far Maria is in great need of support. Maybe she can be included?”
Roland
Many people ask our Finding Freedom board members how we find the women we help in rural Guatemala. After all, there are millions just like them; women who have no food in their homes, no running water or electricity, and who live in rainwater and mud during the rainy season. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of women who are parenting alone in Guatemala and a lack of abundance of any type of social services to assist them.
We start by reviewing requests like the one above from our facilitators in the field.
We examine our budget to determine if there is room for another family to be helped. Annual trips to visit the mothers in our program are essential toward determining which family on our list has the most critical needs. So we go, high up into the mountains, where the need is most acute and the geographical beauty takes our breath away.
Roland
Many people ask our Finding Freedom board members how we find the women we help in rural Guatemala. After all, there are millions just like them; women who have no food in their homes, no running water or electricity, and who live in rainwater and mud during the rainy season. Unfortunately, there is an abundance of women who are parenting alone in Guatemala and a lack of abundance of any type of social services to assist them.
We start by reviewing requests like the one above from our facilitators in the field.
We examine our budget to determine if there is room for another family to be helped. Annual trips to visit the mothers in our program are essential toward determining which family on our list has the most critical needs. So we go, high up into the mountains, where the need is most acute and the geographical beauty takes our breath away.
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| Maria gets a physical exam |
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| Documenting the details |
We sit; we assess; we listen. We do physical exams, and we observe. We take time to be inside homes that leak in the rain and are inadequate shelter in every meaningful way and we feel. We use our women’s intuition, our male board member’s critical thinking skills and our non-profit board member experience to inform our instincts on whether or not this particular family in front of us is credible, and has a desire to help themselves.
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| Maria’s rental house. |
If this need is acute, and the family agrees to sign our contract stating their willingness to educate their children, work toward self-sufficiency and feed an elderly person twice a week, then they have won the Finding Freedom “lottery”.
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| Construction has started on Maria’s home, donated by a FFF benefactor |
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| A proud landowner |
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| Signing FFF contract with a thumbprint. Maria does not read or write.
When the stars line up for one of the women we assist, and we have funds to include them in our program, miracles happen. Children are included in our scholarship program and become educated. Food is delivered once a month and bodies receive nutrition. Medical needs are address, and people heal. Homes are built and shelter becomes a reality instead of a dream. Water contracts and land deeds are legally filed, securing futures. Mind, body and spirit flourish, because women now know that someone cares enough to give them a lift up and out of the abyss of grinding poverty. After five years of doing our work, not one of the women we have helped has said they were sorry we found them, listened to them, heard their needs and helped.
Connection, caring, compassion….the three “C’s” at the core of the three “F’s.” |
