If anyone wonders how one gets started helping in a foreign country...............I can only offer my own example, as on the pages of this blog, but here is a summary in a few paragraphs: I visited Antigua to learn Spanish and while there looked up several projects, went to visit them and gave them my credentials - M.A. in psychology and MFT license, former teacher and social worker. Unfortunately what I didn't have at the beginning was Spanish. So that held everything else up.
But where there's a will, there's a way. So I volunteered to help with babies in the hospital; babies don't care if you can speak Spanish...they just want to be held and smiled at, and hear a loving voice. Then by chance I met someone who was involved with a project and was willing to take me in to shepherd his young teachers, if I would take a training. So - sure, of course! I attended the training and became enraptured with their philosophy and their program of "brain gym"-adapted exercises for preschoolers. I left the hospital after writing a letter to the doctors, praising their physical care of the babies but alerting about the need for emotional and developmental work with them, and writing a small manual for future volunteers.
I worked in Antigua for this project for several years and then moved closer to the director of that program in San Pedro LL. There I worked for the director, testing in the schools, seeing kids who were having difficulty reading, and shepherding a teacher in one public school classroom. In that school, their director gave me a chance at my own preschool classroom to provide enhanced experiences for the children in their regular classes.
I began selling artifacts of the local artisans in my home town to gain money to buy the school paint for their preschool tables and chairs, and then a copier for the office (so the teachers weren't hand-drawing activities pages), and finally preschool play-yard equipment (put in by the parents.)
About that time I met two painters (introduced to me by their cousin, the man who painted our tables and chairs) and began to offer funds for various of their activities with kids, becoming more and more involved over the years to the point of teaching in class, looking for sponsors, taking the painters to the states to sell paintings, etc etc. After three years, I discontinued the classroom in San Pablo after teaching some beginning teachers to maintain the activities in that room and leaving them with all my equipment.
The painters and I met a parting-of-the-ways when I finally discovered they were cheating me, and eventually mishandling the project funds and cheating the mothers. With some trepidation and legal advice, I branched out and did my own version of the project - the whole board of directors and half the families coming with me.
While this continued, I met a tailor who could bring a professional reality to my clothing designs, and we began selling clothing made from recycled Guatemalan textiles in the same way that I had previously developed benefit events for the school.
I'm still heading the children's project on my own, and the clothing project as well - though the pandemic has made a serious dent in my ability to sell in the states. But on we go, and we're doing well enough - supporting 35 families, in the process with a community garden and learning to develop saleable products from the garden.
Thank Heavens my friends in the states as well as people who have met and believed in us, continue to support the families in the program. I am grateful and humbled by this generosity, every day.
So this is to say - this all has come to me, step-by-step, by following my nose, saying "yes" to things that came, and by doing what I love and naturally occurs to me. In the process I have learned much about my abilities and my failings. Have learned much about how important it is to establish a project that is meaningful to the participants, especially because in their need they will say "yes" to anything, whether it really fits for them or not.
I've had to learn how to allow others to have a part in the project without losing track of its original intent, how to establish guidelines that are clear to staff and participants so that they aren't confused and you aren't overwhelmed, how to be fair and just to staff and participants, alike, when there are so many different needs, ideas, and circumstances. What has seemed to work very well is to have a participant "Board of Directors" or, here, Junta Directiva. I make it clear that I make the ultimate decisions because I have to honor my sponsors and I hold the money, but I want their opinions and input. I also put them completely in charge of what they put in the food baskets, how they are accountable to the participants, and how they distribute the food. I also include them in decisions about including or discontinuing families - though, for close-community reason, many are not comfortable. They want to give me "the dirt"/gossip/their opinions....but want ME to make the decisions.
It's all been difficult, and much has been enormously fun, touching, and deeply rewarding.
