Promotion Newsletter

Tomorrow Team Parrot heads out for another adventure. This time it is all over the states thanking those who made it possible for us to go on the trip. We will go back to all the markets we fundraised at, thank the store manager and hand out this mini-newsletter to customers:::

Institute for International Cooperation and Development

In Cooperation with Humana People to People

Fight Poverty Belize Report

To all of our supporters:

The January Belize (Parrot) Team 2011, The Institute for International Cooperation and Development and Humana People to People would like to say a very special thank you to you!

Without the incredibly generous support of the stores for allowing us to stand outside and talk to people about our goals and missions and to the many people who believed in our cause and lovingly gave what they could, we could not have done all of this amazing work. The experiences we have had have been truly incredible for us and we have had the opportunity to really make a difference in the lives of the people we worked with both throughout the United States (including Detroit, Benton Harbor) as well as in Belize and throughout Central America.

We cannot say thank you enough. It was so inspiring to have so many people come together to help fellow human beings in our own country and around the world. What a great reminder of the generosity and care for our others that still exists in this large and sometimes seemingly disconnected world. Your generosity is so greatly appreciated and we hope that you can also take pride in knowing that you helped make an incredible difference in the lives of people all over the world

North Belize: Douglas Poverty Fighters

We are International Volunteers of IICD who just came back from Belize after we had finished our project for 4months. Before we joined this program, we were really interested about the situation of world poverty and different cultures. So we jumped on January 2011 Belize Team and trained 3months to be a volunteer. After that we traveled several countries in Central America for investigation, we built up our passion from this investigation before starting the project in Belize, Finally we reached into Douglas Village Orange Walk district in North Belize on May and started our project “Child Aid.”

First, we were giving education to 25 families about hygiene, agriculture and family situation. And We also gave Moringa Seeds (medical tree) and plants for nutrition, made Fire Wood Saving Stoves for a family. This is really important to help them have a sustainable system.

We always attended Village community meetings and discussed about action or festival for Village’s development, so we could get permission and do promote what we wanted to do for the village. We had Saturday activities for Art class, and Movie night. And also we had Ping pong class for children who know only soccer without knowledge of any other sport.

We got village cleaning campaign every month with children and parents, it was a good time for the village and they got basic hygiene education with us. They had summer vacation season while we were working, so we got permission for teaching children for two months from the principals of two schools. This gave a good opportunity to learn new experiences giving courses such as hygiene, sports, art and geography. We got really close with the children, they didn’t spend wasting time, we were really happy.

Supporting children from parents to go school is really important. So we decide to make thanks gift for parents with children in the school. Children should know how to appreciate their parents, also parents should know how important it is to support children’s education. Many children in Belize give up school after they graduate primary school, because of the family economy. Specially, many women do house work whole life without education or any experience. So we stared women’s group for enjoying and income generation. We gave various courses as second hand product, drawing, yoga and massage for new experiences and enjoying. Our second month, we made goal for income system, and chose sewing and cake course. So we found people who really want to share and expert from women’s department in town and connected each other. And also they got many different cooking and nutrition classes from us, when village had festival they stared to sell their first product. That was really big change for women who didn’t have any income.

Belize is the highest per capita HIV/AIDS positive country in Central America. Before we held campaign, we attended USAID conference and got good knowledge. After that we had HIV/AID action campaign, we visited family, educated women’s group and acted in village festival with pamphlet and 500 condoms.

Every village wanted their village sign. They are already finished basic sign building. So we gladly gave hand to them, and started paint two village sign. Even if we are not expert painting but we did best design work that matched with the people and village. We were really happy when People said whenever they see the sign they will remember us.

We prepared festival for village income with every leader, and work together with every group of people in the village. The open-day, we got a lot of money by football marathon and many events, that was used for development of village. This was our last big action. It was really valuable time to could see big changed village.

We were not just giving help, whatever, wherever, we were always together and shared. And always thought that thanks people in USA who helped a lot us to could go helping Belize. We really think that helped development these villages is your warm hart and our hands.

South Belize: Otoxha Poverty Fighters

We (Andra and Brian) decided to leave on this 9 month adventure after realizing, really what did we know about the worlds people. We both had a strong passion for humanism and knew it was time to act on that passion. So we found the perfect opportunity in the Institute for International Cooperation and Development to go fight shoulder to shoulder with the worlds poor. After 3 months of training in the U.S. and doing community service within our own country we left for an investigation period in Central America. There we experienced many different cultures and different socio-economic situations, this experience helped prepare ourselves for our more permanent home base in our village.

Our team arrived in Belize May 3^rd, from that time we split into two teams. Sunny and Hyunny went up north and Andra and I(Brian) went south. We stayed in a beautiful village inhabited by the Kekchi Maya the village was called Otoxha, or in Kekchi windy(oto) river(xha). The village has about three hundred inhabitants which all speak Kekchi of course, most speak English and some speak Spanish as we lived close to the Guatemalan border.

We lived in a thatch house with a dirt floor there was no electricity or running water, for us it was very primitive compared to what we were used to in the states. But after four months we survived and ended up loving the living conditions in Otoxha. Our time was spent mobilizing 28 different families in the community. We worked on many projects and educational workshops some include: organizing and painting the library, craft classes, malaria prevention etc. But I will highlight some of the more important achievements while we lived there.

Gardens

Humana People to People really promotes gardens in the projects. This is so families can have fresh vegetables on a daily basis and receive vital nutrients to their diets of mostly corn tortillas. In the end the families built 26 gardens each around 5x5 meters. Nearly the whole village of Otoxha now boasts a garden, we actually didn’t build any gardens, we only mobilized the families to want to help themselves. It was a major struggle at first but by the time we left many families were expert gardeners.

Kids Club

The Humana project we were at was called Child Aid. So naturally one of the focuses of Child Aid is the children. We had a very successful Kids Club in which we played games and taught the children to be active in the community. One of the most memorable experiences was when the children came up with slogans such as “Keep the environment healthy and clean,” and we all painted them on signs, we placed these all around the communities to raise environmental awareness. This gave the children a sense of accomplishment and kept the adults conscious about these issues.

Open Day

In our last month we organized a successful soccer tournament and an Open Day for our project and the villagers. In the villages the schools do not receive government funding so all proceeds went to the school. In the end we were able to get donations from the government of Belize, the Ministry of Health and get 10 teams to come and play. We sold and promoted healthy foods instead of alcohol and in the end raised $1440 for the local school.

Thanks to the generous donations we received in the U.S. this was possible. Throughout the experience we kept the spirit of solidarity in our heart with those who supported us in this adventure. Without the enormous heart of many Americans the children of Otoxha would not have benefited. We thank you once again from the depths of our hearts, thank you! To find out more information or to contact us go to fightpovertyinbelize.blogspot.com or email me at unionmade@hotmail.com