Ending the Year on a High Note
As 2021 comes to an end, I wanted to look back on everything we’ve accomplished this year. It’s true, COVID-19 created so many obstacles and presented us with challenges that we NEVER saw coming!
I want to begin by announcing that TWO of our students have graduated from secondary school! Elias Samuel Serellon and Jairo Steven Santos recently graduated and can be seen below proudly showing off their new diplomas! They both plan to continue their education and will both be pursuing a bachelor’s degree in the upcoming academic year! We know they are both going to achieve great things and are an inspiration to so many in and out of the Los Tehuistes community!
“You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.”
Elias Samuel Serellon and his parents proudly showing off his new degree!
Jairo Steven Santos standing holding his degree for all to see!
In addition to celebrating Elias and Jairo’s graduation, we successfully completed two more mental health workshops for the months of November and December. The theme of the November workshop was Project Life, Teamwork (as a psychological workshop) how to motivate your children to achieve their goals (a workshop for parents), and with a focus on themes of happiness to promote a much more comprehensive education for our scholarship students. In December, the last workshop of the year was completed Project Life with the goal to strengthen the previous themes given to both parents and scholarship students.
“If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it.”
On to the Year Summary:
January:
In January, our scholarship students were on break, so we focused on our Farming for the Future Program. We worked to teach how to prepare a fruit foliar, which is a natural stimulant for plant growth, and also prepared a repellent called M5, which repels all kinds of pests, disease, and plant illness. All of these products are sustainable, low cost, and best of all, organic!
February:
On the first of the month, we delivered approximately 700 tilapia to new families that were integrated into our Farming for the Future program with help from our sister organization American Friends. This delivery was accompanied with a workshop on proper fish management so they will have optimal and healthy development.
March:
The third month of the year started with a community meeting to further strengthen our Farming for the Future Program to ensure a smooth function of the projects. This workshop covered topics such as Hansestral Spirituality, Healthy Eating, Organization and the Negative Impacts of Conventional Agriculture. We were also able to begin a new project; a semi-intensive garden which will benefit each family every year. Additionally, we began working on installing irrigation systems to provide water to 20 families over the winter and summer. This irrigation system was created using old car tires to better retain water!
April:
In April, we partnered with the Agroecological Cooperative “La Basket Campesina” in Comasagua to demonstrate the success we’ve made with our projects and to empower themselves to stimulate similar change within their own community. Additionally, families created two types of organic fertilizers (compos and bocachi) to sow the first experimental 100% orgamic milpa. We also began a new stage of our scholarship program with the implementation of the mental health workshops. These are done through group work and individual work to help our students in any area that is causing them problems. To learn more about our mental health workshops check out our previous blog post!
May:
After the success of the first mental health workshop, we continued with this month’s focus on Self-Esteem to discuss and help students talk about their problems, mental health, and to inspire our students to become the change they wish to see in the community and in their own lives.
June:
June brought about extreme change for Los Tehuistes! Two hundred (yes you read that right) wood and fruit trees were donated by the Ministry of the Environment with the purpose to help reforestation in the community, and to mitigate a terrible pollution problem. We were also able to successfully cultivate completely organic corn!
July:
As a good halfway mark in the year, we continued our mental health workshops with this month’s theme being Anger Control with a focus on how to develop better interpersonal and familial relationships. We also hosted a virtual 5K where people from all around the country participated!
August:
August was an absolutely incredible month for us! We were able to successfully demonstrate the efficiency of our 100% organic products through corn production! Additionally, Idalia Gomez and Mayra Koreas continued to give life to the Older Adult Literacy Project, created by the Ministry of Education, and successfully graduated five adult women! The mental health workshop that accompanied this wonderful month was named My Personal Care with the focus on a healthy diet and physical exercise.
September:
Everything kept moving along during the month of September with continuing workshops on organic farming and mental health. This month’s focus was on sexuality and gender diversity and communication within immediate family.
October:
As the year began to draw to a close, we continued to focus on our mental health workshops with the month of October focusing on the issues of Violence Against Women, Project Life (a workshop given to parents), and Teamwork.
November:
November was a relatively quiet month for us, but as with previous months, we continued our mental health workshops on happiness, teamwork, and motivation.
December:
We finished off this year with the graduation of Elias Samuel Serellon and Jairo Steven Santos! We are extremely excited to continue to support them in furthering their education!
There’s so much more we plan on doing this upcoming year so keep an eye out for future blog posts!
