Trip Notes

CURRENT GOALS:

Part of our goal is to broaden the girl's experience and knowledge.

1. SELF CONFIDENCE, SELF-WORTH AND A SENSE OF VALUE

The birth gender (female) devaluation and the girl's interest in having fewer babies, prompted discussions about conception, fertility cycle and who determines child gender. The girls are now charting their cycles with basil thermometers, compliments of the very generous donation from Mabis Company, and fertility cycle beads (Planned Parenthood). They will hopefully be the teachers in their villages. None of our girls had ever been taught anything about the fertility cycle or baby gender. I also took the cycle beads to some 150 villagers and will continue to do this, as invited.

Cultural restraints: each girl was given a Spanish copy of Chiquita's Cocoon by Betina Flores. It is written for Latina women whose culture keeps them down. Each girl had to do a report on what they got out of the book. The variety of responses was interesting, from the control of the church, male machismo, to their value, dependent upon giving birth to male versus female babies.

Domestic Violence: one of the becadas was from a very violent home where family members were beaten regularly. Each girl was given information, about the signs and symptoms of domestic abuse, which I explain was to help them avoid getting into abusive relationships in the future. I asked that they write a book report on what they had learned. They were very interested in the subject and several mentioned they knew someone who was abusing or abused. I did not ask who.

Subsequent trips will present more relevant topics.

HILDA said when she joined SPIRIT, it was a scholarship, but now SPIRIT is a program.

2. FOSTER ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE AND ENGLISH PROGRESS

Each year, parent conferences are required for any girl who is not meeting the requirements of grades, English class attendance and/or email writing to Godparents. Visits are made to remaining families as time permits. It is a good time to discuss parent commitment through the remaining of their daughter's education and make suggestions as to how illiterate parents can become involved in the success of their daughters education.

Generally, this has been increasingly successful as now, we all know the program expectations and future rewards for the girls, hence their parents, after graduation. Unfortunately, one mother decided a good beating would make the necessary changes. Culture change is sometime slow and painful to see.

The girl's collective GPA continues to rise. The girls are surprising themselves with their results. In 2008: OUR GIRL'S EARNED AN 86% GPA!!!!!! in a country that does not grade inflate GPAs reached a high of 94% with 5 girls earning 90% or above. There is a feeling of striving for excellence with the group. The energy seemed to enfold the new ones as well as older ones who used to be struggling to maintain their grades. I spoke with one of the girls' who had been struggling with us for some time. She said there was definitely a change over the last 3 years and their GPA continues to be the mid 80%.

Home Visits: the objective was to visit the becada and applicant homes to see how the girls live and to revisit Spirit objectives with the families, particularly the fathers. The visits were often challenging, such as Glendy via a road that is impossible in anything less than a truck.

In many houses, they slept in one room. In some houses, they only had one room. However, they were so happy with the visit and sharing their lives with their madrinas, current and future. A number of chickens lost their lives for the occasions.

Generally, the fathers are very happy with the program. I took the visits as an opportunity to explain the Spirit education benefits, with salary differences. The mothers are 100% behind their girl's educational opportunity.

Management change: We took a chance on two becada parents as the new local management. One is a bookkeeper and the other a strong minded single mother. It was an inspired decision, as communication has been close to immediate for the last two years. These two managers are dedicated to making Spirit even better. They also seem honored to be the local directors. I look forward to seeing more wonderful changes, as they gain confidence and success. They are the first step in application evaluations. Their on-the-ground life among the poor is invaluable.

School relationships: We are working closely with the director of the Genova middle school, Los Cerros middle school and the two Coatepeque high school directors to help access need and academic ability.

A native English speaker Sandy, from Canada has been our English teacher for three years now. She is academically well trained and loves working with girls who want to learn. She is limiting her teaching to Spirit girls and the girls love her lessons.