Give the Gift of Education to Bolivian Girls

                              FIRST SEMESTER REPORT 2023

             FUNDACION HELPING HANDS - LA PAZ (BOLIVIA)

Greetings to all of our donors, sponsors and friends of Helping Hands. Another year has begun at the project and we are excited to be able to fill you in on the advances this first semester.

            INTERVIEWS OF READMISSIONS AND NEW APPLICANTS

In the months of January and February, the readmissions of our students from last year and the incorporation of new applicants ran smoothly. We currently have 92 students, 61 girls and 31 boys who come from 8 different municipalities in the Department of La Paz. 90% of our students are between 8 and 25 years of age.

Many of our Helping Hands friends have inquired as to the careers that our post-secondary students have chosen. We have prepared a chart to illustrate the wide variety of careers our students are studying at Helping Hands. The two most popular are Accounting and Early Childhood Education, although actually in the field of education we have 11 students in total. In the area of business and finance there are 15 students and in health we have 13 students. It is interesting to see how the popularity of careers has changed with time. Several years ago, Gastronomy and Agronomy were the most popular fields. Classes in Bolivia are now face-to-face, which is an advantage for students since the interaction and development of their social skills is much better.

                       STUDENTS IN THEIR PRACTICAL STUDIES

Jhovani is in his last year of Industrial Mechanics and is carrying out a project making a wood pelletizing machine. His teachers congratulated him for his excellent work and they have invited Jhovani to compete at the National Expo Fair. If he is successful, his participation will count as his final exam. We are very proud of Jhovani! Nathaly is in her last semester of Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics. One of her last projects was raising pigs. Nataly has achieved her goal of finishing her Veterinary studies and at the same time is raising her daughter who is now 3 years old. Well done Nathaly! Luzmila has just finished her internship in Surgical Instrumentation at Nuestra Señora de La Paz University. She is currently waiting to give her final defense for her title. Congratulations, Luzmila!!

THANKS FOR THE DONATIONS FROM AMERICAN COOPERATIVE SCHOOL (CALVERT) AND EDUARDO AND VANIA

To start off the year, we had the generous donation of school supplies and a gift of an item of clothing for each of our students from the American Cooperative School (Calvert). Thank you very much, teacher Andi, who was in charge of the collection at her school.

Our collaborators, Eduardo and Vania, also collected many books that will be very useful for the students of Helping Hands. Public schools don´t use many books because of the cost, and there is not a culture of reading in most families. Now our students have books at home!! Every year, our greatest support for the purchase of all school materials, including uniforms, shoes, musical instruments, specific books, sports outfits and much more, is provided by the San Luis Foundation. Thanks to this support, our students have all the school supplies they need for their education.

                                BONUSES FOR GOOD GRADES

At the end of the second semester of 2022, after an evaluation of their academic grades, our students received a bonus for superior performance. 15 high school students and 38 post-secondary students were the winners of these bonuses that are an extra motivation to work hard and maintain their good grades.

                                             FOOD BASKETS

Some of our families are very large and have only the mother as provider for the whole family. As well, some mothers suffer from chronic illnesses. With the money they earn they tend to buy the cheapest but least nutritious foods like rice, noodles, and sugar. One of the supports that the Helping Hands provides for our most needy families is nutritious food. Each month we provide 25 families with food baskets that contain dry and fresh foods, including vegetables, fruits, eggs, powdered milk, quinoa, lentils, salt, api, and more. These food baskets are very essential for good nutrition for our students, so they are able to concentrate on their studies and perform well.

                          TWO GRADUATIONS THIS FIRST SEMESTER

In Bolivia, graduations can be carried out throughout the year since universities tend to organize them when there are a enough students ready to graduate. This first semester, Lizeth graduated as a Tecnico Superior in Educational Sciences at UMSA and in September she will have her graduation by excellence as a Bachelor of Educational Sciences. Gustavo graduated as a Tecnico Superior in Management and Entrepreneurship at the Bolivian Catholic University with a specialty in Business Development. Gustavo also studied English at the First Class Institute, so he has many tools for the world of work.

                      WORKSHOPS WITH THE STUDENTS

FEBRUARY: “INFORMATIVE AND GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER”

Our first workshop focused on our new students of 2022 and 2023 to provide them with information about the requirements and activities that Helping Hands will be carrying out throughout the year. The students played board games at the beginning of the session to break the ice and help us get to know each other better.

MARCH: “DOES FRIENDSHIP HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE?”

In the month of March we had the psychologists, Yamile and Viviana, give a workshop on building healthy friendships. Considering that our students live in an environment of daily socialization, we believe that it is very important that they have some tips to consider when building a healthy friendship, so they can also distinguish and avoid toxic friendships.

APRIL: “GRADUATION MODALITIES”

The April workshop focused on our post-secondary students, particularly those who are nearing the completion of their studies. They received valuable information on the different modalities of graduation in the various universities and technical institutes. The most frequent doubts of the students regarding this matter include the costs, the differences between the modalities of graduation and the duration of the process. Although Helping Hands does provide some assistance at this stage, the students must also have savings, as the process is expensive.

We were very thankful to our former Helping Hands students who held this workshop (from left to right) Prudencio (Commercial Engineering), Anel (Physiotherapy and Kinesiology), Efrain (Veterinary Medicine and Zootechnics), Lara from the Netherlands doing research for her Masters, Yunior (Petroleum Engineering), Yharka (Early Childhood Education), Lizeth (Educational Sciences) and Yoselin (Business Administration). They provided firsthand information on the different modalities of graduation in universities and technical institutes.

MAY: "STRENGTHEN THE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MOTHERS AND CHILDREN WITH LOVE."

In the month of May, the psychologists Viviana and Yamile held our workshop and presented ways to maintain a good communication between mothers and their children. For this workshop, we also enjoyed the participation of mothers who are the most important foundation in the lives of the young students. We were able to celebrate Mother’s Day as well.

JUNE: “ACADEMIC WRITING”

Our post-secondary students attended our June workshop on academic writing. The goal of this talk was to strengthen our students´ writing skills to improve their performance in their technical and university studies. Vania, an expert in Linguistics and a professor at the state university, the UMSA, led this workshop and had us all writing up a storm.

HELPING HANDS STUDENTS VOLUNTEER

Many thanks to our donors, sponsors and friends who also believe in education to build a better future for all. Without your contribution we wouldn´t be able to continue with our work of opening educational opportunities to young people in situations of vulnerability and disadvantage. Little by little we can make a difference!!

Muchos saludos,

Linda Zarate President:

Fundación Helping Hands-La Paz (Bolivia)

 OUR BACHILLER, GUINES

Guines, one our former students, joined Helping Hands in 2008 for his last two years of high school. Although he then started out in Veterinary Medicine, he decided he really wanted to learn to drive heavy road construction equipment. He was lucky to find a job and training in this field and has worked all over the country building roads. Heis now working as the project supervisor near Ixiamas in the Bolivian tropics.  Guines is married and has a four-year-old daughter.  Congratulations Guines!!!

                               

OUR CHEF ALVARO

Alvaro, one our former students, joined Helping Hands in 2012 for his last two years of high school. A dedicated student, Alvaro always loved cooking, and his goal was to become a great chef.  He studied Gastronomy at the Escuela Hotelera here in La Paz, graduating in 2017.  After an apprentice and work experience at the prestigious Los Tajibos in Santa Cruz, Alvaro returned to La Paz and is now working at the new restaurant “Nina Brasas” in the brand new “Green Tower”, the tallest building in Bolivia with 40 floors. Congratulations, Alvaro, upon realizing your dream!!

A SUPER thank you to all who contributed to the Little by Little campaign to finance Gabriela’s and Yessica’s year of practical studies.  Yessica is now totally financed and Gabriela needs only $US 213 to complete her need.
If you would like to help complete this need for Gabriela, or donate to Helping Hands in general, please click on the buttons below.
Thank you.

OUR 2023 INTERVIEWS

At the beginning of the year, our students returned to re-register and have an interview with Helping Hands. It was a good opportunity to talk about their progress, study plans, goals, and concerns.  As well, we were able to meet the new applicants for 2023. Our director, Linda, and our counselor, Maria Eulogia, carried out the interviews.

OUR VISITORS

Lara comes from Holland and she is visiting Helping Hands to carry out her research for her master’s thesis on “Empowerment of Women through Education”. She has been interviewing our students about education, employment, family, and culture to learn more about the different issues that Bolivian women have to face. Thank you Lara for choosing Helping Hands.  Our students have enjoyed this opportunity to take part in your research.

Pamela and her husband Philip from England visited our office in March. Pamela worked at Helping Hands for almost two years, and it was a nice surprise to see her again and talk about her new job in her new country of residence, England.

We also had the opportunity to meet one of our loyal sponsors, Mily, from Puerto Rico, and her friend, Nola, from the U.S.  We are very grateful to all those who support Helping Hands andmake it possible for us to educate so many vulnerable young people.

OUR TRIP TO ARICA CHILE

One of our anxiously awaited activities each year for all of our graduates was the trip to Arica, Chile, to see the ocean for the first time. After having to postpone this trip for two years due to the pandemic, finally in 2023 we were able to once again organize the trip together with our students. We took a boat ride on the sea, hiked up to the lookout overseeing the city, walked around the city and, of course, swam in the ocean. For most of our students, it was the first time to see and enjoy the sea.

OUR STUDENTS RECEIVE SCHOOL MATERIALS AND FOOD

Throughout the year, our students require uniforms, shoes, books, instruments for music classes, and school materials. Helping Hands tries to cover all these needs for our young students.

Another very important need for many of our families is food. Helping Hands provides monthly supplementary food baskets for 25 of our most needy families.  

FEBRUARY

In the month of February, we had our first informative workshop "Living together," aimed at our new students. To make the workshop dynamic, we started with some board games such as UNO, Jenga, Dominoes, Illustrative Bingo, and Snakes and Ladders to break the ice. The students were organized into different groups to work on the monthly requirements for 2023.

MARCH

Our March workshop, "Does Friendship have an Expiration Date?" was presented by Viviana and Yamile, both psychologists. Knowing that friendship is so important in a person's life, the goal of this workshop was to raise awareness in the students on the importance of being able to recognize a healthy friendship from a toxic one.

At this workshop, we gave out the bonuses for academic proficiency to our high school students.

                   FUNDACION HELPING HANDS - LA PAZ (BOLIVIA)

                                            ANNUAL REPORT 2022

Together we have made it possible for so many Bolivian young people in vulnerable situations to finish a programme of studies and open the gates to a future of new opportunities. After three years of facing many challenges due to the pandemic, our students have adapted and surged ahead in spite of the many obstacles. They have shown resilience and determination in working toward their goals and we are very proud of them.

We hope you enjoy our Annual Report for 2022 as you have been fundamental to the success of so many students.

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES

In 2022 Helping Hands supported 122 students as they continued their programmes of studies. 7 of our high school students graduated as you can see in the pictures above with

their teachers; although one of our girls, Slenka, was unable to attend her graduation, so we are missing a graduation picture of her.

COMPLETION OF POST SECONDARY PROGRAMME

15 of our post-secondary students completed their coursework in their technical or university programmes of study in quite a variety of areas from Gastronomy to Veterinary Medicine. In Bolivia the students are required to complete a thesis, a final project, a directed work assignment or an apprenticeship before graduating and these students will be working on this independently in 2023. 5 of our students who completed their coursework in 2021 had their final graduations in 2022.

FORMER STUDENTS

In addition to seeing our students successfully complete their studies, we are pleased to see the progress and impact that these studies have on our former students and their families. Our former Dentistry student, Gisela, has her own office and a successful dental practice in the city. Gisela now provides dental services for our Helping Hands students. We are very grateful to her as well for the workshops on dental care she has always been willing to give to our students.

Freddy is also one of our former students who studied Civil Engineering. Freddy and his wife, Greis, visited our office last year and brought us a donation of food for our supplementary food baskets ingratitude for all the support he received from Helping Hands for his studies.

Another of our former students, Efraín, who studied Veterinary Medicine, currently has his Veterinary practice with several years of experience and success. Efraín opened his doors to Silvia, a new Veterinary Medicine student at Helping Hands, to do her internship with him. It has been a great learning experience for Silvia.

In 2022 we worked more closely with former students of Helping Hands, and we hope to increase this cooperation in 2023 involving more former students who can provide opportunities for internships for our students and other forms of support for the Foundation.

 OUR STUDENTS VOLUNTEER

We were excited to be able to return to most of our usual activities in 2022 as the pandemic subsided. Throughout the years we have been motivating our students to take the initiative to help others and their community through volunteering. In 2022 our students donated blood, gave presentations on the environment in schools, cleaned

streets and plazas, gave food to the homeless, tutored younger students and much more. This has turned out to be a popular activity with very positive feedback from the students.

INTEGRAL DEVELOPMENT

For our students to experience a more comprehensive development, Helping Hands continued with our monthly workshops. The topics that were offered in 2022 included an informative workshop about our Foundation rules and regulations, a talk on the importance of dental health given by our ex-student and dentist Gisela, a workshop on being safe on social media, a meeting in the countryside with a talk on the state of the environment, and an informative workshop about the prevention of sexual abuse in children given by one of our ex-students, Lizeth. Our workshops are designed to strengthen our students’ skills and knowledge and give them the tools they need to face today's world.

FOOD SUPPLEMENTATION AND SCHOOL SUPPLIES

Helping Hands supports children and young people from very low-income families. During the pandemic it was of paramount importance to assist the families who needed food. However, there turned out to be many benefits from including a monthly supplementary food basket for the neediest families. We had direct contact with the families monthly, and we saw that the students were healthier as the baskets contained fresh fruit and vegetables, oatmeal, cooking oil and high protein foods such as eggs, powdered milk, lentils, beans, quinoa and peanuts. During 2022 we continued to provide supplementary food baskets to 24 of our families. We were very grateful to the American Cooperative School for running a food drive to collect items for our food baskets and to our ex-student Freddy A. who also donated dry food.

In 2022, Helping Hands provided our 37 elementary students with all their required school materials, uniforms and special school needs. This is so very important for our younger students as the local schools do not supply notebooks, books, paper, or any other materials for the students making it very difficult for low-income families to keep their children in school. We are very grateful to the Fundacion San Luis for providing the funds for school materials.

OUR CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION

After two years without an end of year celebration, in 2022 we organized our traditional Christmas party with an attendance of about 150 students and family members. We began with our student talent show with singing, dancing and recitations followed by the awarding of participation and graduation certificates. Of course, we then all shared hot chocolate, Christmas bread and cookies before the well anticipated raffle of prizes. To end the evening, all of the students received a Christmas bread, cocoa, powdered milk and cookies and the younger children all received the gift of a backpack, thanks to our generous donors on GlobalGiving.

The Christmas party is a happy occasion to bring together all of our young people, to celebrate the successful conclusion of a year of hard work and much effort to overcome the many challenges they had to face to complete their year of studies.

A FEW FACTS

In 2022, Helping Hands supported a total of 122 students, 79 girls and 43 boys from 10 municipalities in the department of La Paz.

We thank you so very much for partnering with Helping Hands to bring the opportunity of an education to so many vulnerable Bolivian young people. Having an education opens so many doors and breaks the cycle of poverty of so many families. 

Muchos saludos,

Linda

EDGAR AND GONZALO

Gonzalo, right, one of our deaf students, finished his Gastronomy studies with Helping Hands a few years ago and now has his own pizza place. Edgar, left, our present deaf student, is now in his last year of a three year programme of Gastronomy and he is working on weekends with Gonzalo. A big THANKS to Gonzalo for giving this opportunity to his fellow Helping Hands student and well done to Edgar.

                                              CHRISTMAS PARTY

After two years of pandemic, we again were able to celebrate together with our traditional Christmas party. Our students celebrated with paneton (Christmas bread), hot chocolate, cookies and very fun activities such as dancing, singing and playing musical instruments. It was a time to celebrate this season and bring joy and encouragement to our hard-working students and their families.

                                           OUR GRADUATES

JESSICA

Jessica, an energetic student who loves to participate in everything, just graduated from High School in December 2022. Now, she is thinking of studying Medicine at the university.

EVA AND LEIDY

Eva and Leidy graduated from high school in Sorata (a village in the department of La Paz). Eva plans to study Accounting in Sorata.

ESPERANZA

Esperanza also graduated from high school in Cayimbaya (a village in the department of La Paz). She is now moving to the city in order to work part time and take some preparation classes in Odontology to apply to the state University UMSA at the middle of this year.

YHARKA

Yharka now has her degree of Ténico Superior in Early Childhood Education from the INFOCAL Institute. She is planning to continue studying the same career at the state University UPEA to have her bachelor´s degree. However, she is now able to work at what she likes most.

LUZ MARINA

Luz Marina also graduated from High School in 2022. She is now studying entrepreneurship at TUSGE program in the Catholic University. Luz is a very good student and she is very motivated to have a career to help her family.

OCTOBER

In the month of October, our workshop was about "Violence Prevention”. This workshop was aimed at our elementary and high school students, focused on preventing violence and its consequences so that our students, their families, and communities are safe, healthy, and free from violence. They also played some recreational games such as UNO, Jenga, Dominoes, Illustrative Bingo, and Snakes and Ladders to break the ice.

NOVEMBER

Our Novemeber workshop, "Youth violence prevention", was given by our former student Lizeth, and the group Fenix.  Youth violence is a serious problem that can have lasting harmful effects on victims, their families, friends, and communities. The goal of this workshop was to raise awareness in the students on effective ways to prevent or reduce this issue.

We appreciate so very much your continued support for our students as they work toward realizing their dreams of having an education and becoming positive, productive members of their communities. You are an important part of their success.  

Donations are always so welcome to keep our students in school.