By Linda Zarate | Director
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.
By Linda Zarate | Director
By Linda Zarate | Director
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