Around Hogar - just for fun!

First of all, our dog Lassie, who escaped from the premises just about two months ago, turned out to be pregnant from her escapades in Camoapa. Just last week she gave birth to ten pups! It has brought some excitement to Hogar and an unexpected, yet welcomed, technique for teaching the children how to care for small, vulnerable creatures.


















Here are some photos of a recent field trip up the nearby mountain, Mombacho. It was vacation week, and after a few days of working on the farm and doing other small projects around Hogar (including having fun, of course!) the trip was a much needed break from school. They spent time playing futbol, scrambling for the candy out of a pinata, exploring a bit of the local terrain and swimming in the river.



































The children at Hogar receive a well-rounded education. In addition to regular classes, they also receive cultural dance lessons, voice lessons, basket weaving instruction, health education and the older kids receive a mentorship in a selected vocation. The entire group of 22 also occasionally goes out to the farm to help Don Adrian plant vegetables, flowers or simply to maintain the grounds. Here are some of the older boys at work:


















And here are some of the others receiving basket weaving instruction:

Sewing classes as a time for sharing

With the big donation of sewing machines that we received some weeks ago, our sewing class at Hogar has really taken off! Several nights a week, some of the Mothers of our students come to learn sewing techniques as well as to enjoy the time engaging with each other, the children and the staff. Most recently they have been helping us with new dance costumes for the folkloric dance performances in which most of our children participate. It turns out that just the other day the kids were able to try out their new costumes for a show performed here at Hogar that actually made the local nightly news! The Mothers bring a wonderful feeling of love and connection to the center and we hope to continue to be able to offer this space for ongoing sharing, growing and support.




































Here are some of the new costumes in use:

Donations

Twice a year Hogar Luceros receives a truckload of donated items from the United States. Most of the items come from Massachusetts and are shipped through a Church program in Buffalo, New York. We recently traveled to Teustepe (a town about an hour from Camoapa) to pick up the donated items, which included 2 bicycles, 10 sewing machines, 6 boxes of fabric and sewing notions, a box of baby clothes, 12 large early childhood development toys and some miscellaneous household items. The baby clothes were given to the Casa Materna here in Camoapa and the large toys were delivered to Centro de Desorrollo Infantil (CDI), which is a program that serves 140 children, ages 1 month to 6 years. Along with the toys, Hogar's Social Worker, Aleyda, provided a training on early childhood development strategies for the staff of CDI. She stressed the necessity to engage young children and offered techniques for encouraging all aspects of a child's development, including fine motor skills, gross motor skills, cognition, speech ability, sense perception, social affectiveness, auto-independence, etc. All in all, it was a beautiful day for the children of CDI who seemed delighted to have some new and interesting toys to play with (see the photos below for their smiling faces) because the reality is that CDI manages with very few resources and an insufficient amount of staff to provide the children what it is that they really need.




















































For information on how to make similar donations, please contact us at the email listed to the right.