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Safe Homes for Children Main Page | Site Policies | Contact | Email |
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Outside the Orphanage Guatemala City is typical of this beautiful land with so many contrasts. It's a sprawling city of over two million people. You'll find The Marriott, your friendly McDonald's, Pizza Hut, numerous familiar car dealships and all the other accoutrements you'd expect in an average American city. There are wide tree-lined boulevards, tall buildings, crowded crosswalks and smog. There are vendors at every stoplight selling beautiful flowers, home-grown fruits and vegetables plus everything you'd expect to see at your local flea market: hardware, cell phone jacks, tee-shirts, etc. But as you move away from the center of the city you see the patches of the utter poverty that plague the country. The prolonged civil war forced many to relocate from the country to the city. Slums consist of bamboo and cardboard shacks with corrugated tin roofs. There is little running water and less santitation. An average good salary is $10-12 / day. Subsistance is a way of life whether it's farming or manual labor. Owning a vechicle--no matter what it looks like--is a sign of status. Corruption is a part of everyday life. All banks and any business with an inventory have an armed guard. The society consists of haves and have nots. There is no social safety net. No welfare program of any sort. Although there are "free" public schools, books and uniforms cost a month's salary and many children on the streets are illilterate. The children that come into the orphanage are ordered from the court system. They are the refuse of society. With no financial help from the government we operate a rescue center. We offer hope where there was none, three meals a day, schooling, religious training and a chance at life. The countryside can be even worse. The area where we are saving to buy land for a permanent orphanage location has an even lower daily income. The children are recruited by their parents to sell craft and clothing items the parents make. Sometimes in both the country and the city they are recruited to beg. We have seen 10 year olds hauling around their younger siblings and begging off the tourists. The court in this area is begging us to hurry up and open as they have no where to send street children or abused children who need a safe place to stay. |
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