Bridges of all kinds

From Ted van der Zalm’s Fb post April 5, 2023. Campo Esperanza has been the center of a beehive of activity over the last month. After the “Bridge” and “construction” teams made huge advances in classroom building and securing safe passage for students crossing dangerous streams in order to get to school, Wells of Hope welcomed another group of volunteers from Holy Cross High School in Peterborough. Grade twelve students, with their chaperones, have made their fifth mission experience trip to Campo Esperanza. They immediately embraced the challenge of providing a home for a young widow, her children, and her mother. The students forged strong bonds with the family as everyone participated in the grueling work of hauling rocks and mud bricks in order to get the adobe home completed before the rains begin.

Wells of Hope received a container load of school supplies from a generous donor through the Niagara Warehouse of Hope. The Holy Cross crew were blessed to be the deliverers of the school supplies to the numerous elementary schools that Wells of Hope has supported in the mountains of the Jalapa Region. Experiencing firsthand the desperate need for classroom materials, the students went home with a greater appreciation for the education system that they have been blessed with.

The teachers and students of the schools that were visited were so grateful for the generous gift of school supplies, yet they could not resist the opportunity to point out a further need…..school desks. The Holy Cross students were stunned to see that classrooms used bricks and pails as seats for the pupils. Campo Esperanza’s Ben Center is now in full production, manufacturing quality school desks, using recycled plastics, hoping to alleviate the desk shortage that most schools experience. You can also be a part of this fantastic initiative by sponsoring a school desk for $65. A great Christmas gift to the students of the Jalapa Region!

The classrooms being built in the communities of La Paz and Sausal are ready for the roof! Just in time before the onslaught of the rainy season, two more schools will now have sufficient classrooms to be able to teach all of the students indoors, without having to do battle with the elements from inside a makeshift classroom.

The well in Laguna El Sapo has been completed! The communities that will be receiving the fresh, life giving water from this well are busy building the concrete water tank that will allow the water to be distributed through a gravity fed network of pvc pipes to over three thousand recipients. With only a few more weeks before the expected rainy season, Jim Fyfe, a well driller volunteer from B.C. has lent his years of drilling experience to begin another well the far off mountain community of SanSupo.