What would...?

Good work, massive impact on lives, but SO many still unreached. If more people doing this work were put into positions of power, helping make those big political and economic decisions, how would society change?

It’s an interesting one looking at the results being achieved. I’ve seen huge change in many children’s and families’ lives. But there are masses more. We all strive for societies, governments and people to take these issues more seriously and take bigger steps to addressing them. This is why advocacy is a huge part of NGO (non-governmental organisation) work. Great models, such as the Early Encounter one I am volunteering for, are doing great work. The key is expansion and we hope that will continue to happen.

Many of these thoughts arose visiting projects in Cochabamba, Oruro and Lima while my parents and sister were over. The work is great but the scale of need is massive. But we keep going because another child is another child - always something worth a great celebration. But we forever long for growth of the work.

Anyway, hope you’re all well. As a lot of you know Mum and Dad have been over visiting the Early Encounter networks in Latin America. They first went to the networks in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. I then met them in Cochabamba where we then went on to Oruro, had a bit of a holiday in Peru and then Lima. They have blogged on each country they’ve been to so have a look - http://alastair-debbie-welford.blogspot.com/ Becky caught Mum and Dad up and came direct to Cochabamba after she had finished university. See her blog full of great stories and amazing photos - http://bwsouthamerica.blogspot.com/

I often find it emotionally draining trying to make sense of the different experiences I have and hear of. During Mum, Dad and Becky’s time here we visited a lot of projects, heard some really happy and joyful stories, heard some really sad and disturbing stories, visited children living on the streets, visited children living in secure and safe environments, been taken through areas that just break your heart, been taken through the beauty of the Peruvian countryside that blows your mind – Lake Titikaka, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu - seen the stunning Miraflores of Lima lit-up by fountains, high-rise hotels, flashy cars, amazing sea-view restaurants, expensive shops, and then just round the corner very steep hills full of coloured shacks dotted around and barely standing firm in neighbourhoods filled with violence and drug dealers where families live every day with a struggle for survival. The inequality is unbelievable.

How to work this all out is a difficult one. Perspective is a big thing to grab hold of and those moments when a lot has been going on and we feel like we get it are great. The first thing we need to try and remember is that we do not have all the answers. Seeing suffering on such a scale always brings the question ‘why?’ to every human being. We are designed like that. To know everything would give it all away and the search would stop, along with faith. We always wish we could know a bit more, and a bit more. It’s natural. I believe in a loving God who knows every human being and strives for us to seek him and know him more. According to the Bible that is his aim – to have us on a journey with him asking questions, learning more and most importantly realising how amazing he is resulting in us loving him more for what he has done. Nowhere is it said in the Bible that God’s priority for us is a comfortable life here on earth. It is nice but it is certainly not a priority and is not what will help us. God has his own perfect agenda for creating situations in a world where each and every person can find him. We don’t know what those are and seeing such suffering will cause us to respond emotionally and question his ways, but our faith becomes the big subject here and it is up to us to balance our views up.

In my experience finding God is the best thing ever. I have always believed in a creator of the universe since I can remember. My lies, pride, arrogance, not getting my priorities right, and everything else that falls under the bracket of sin makes me unworthy of his loving offer of eternity with him but to see him willingly sending his obedient son, Jesus Christ, to earth to create the way by taking our punishment by not just being crucified on a cross but by taking the full wrath of God to pay for the sins every human being has and ever will commit is something I have to be thankful for. This is what happened and what I know by various means of solid evidence and experience is true. God has put his cards on the table and has given us the choice to accept or not. It is God’s focus that every member of the human race encounters him. Yes, poverty is horrible. But as a Christian it is good to have the perspective and reality of what God’s agenda is for us, not just as a comfort to help take in what I have seen on my travels and duration of my time living here, even though it is, but to understand how God works and know that there is a lot more going on than what only our eyes can see. For me it comes down to knowing that God’s agenda is to encounter us and for us to encounter him, and then to recognise that not just material poverty exists but so does spiritual poverty, and to keep in mind that eternity is a lot, lot, longer than the few years we have here.

I don’t like writing loads here for each post. I would love to go into more pacific details about our travels and I could go on and on and on... but I won’t. So (because I’m lazy I guess) I kindly direct you to my parent’s and sisters’ blogs (links further up). They’ve gone into more detail and will give you a further insight into pacific projects, encounters with children, photos, videos, etc. I hope to have the chance to tell some of the stories I have, whether in person or in my next blog.

I only have 2 more weeks in Oruro then I’ll be back in England. I hope to do a few more after I’m back as I think it’d be good to share stories that are on my mind. So don’t worry, you can look forward to more blogging...

Thanks.

Preventing that ‘street lifestyle’ – Work with street children

As part of the work of Early Encounter Oruro the team also work with children who have turned to a ‘street lifestyle’ or have been forced to due to various circumstances. Bolivia holds a horrific statistic that states in roughly 8 families out of every 10 some form of child abuse takes place. This abuse could be physical, sexual or mental. Such problems drive many children to the brink and over and result in many running away from home and fending for themselves in whatever way they can. In Oruro there are many children who live with friends/siblings and spend their days doing whatever they can to help them survive – shoe shining, selling bags, carting heavy goods around the markets – children working in these roles are many of which we visit. There are also children who still live at home with their families, go to school and still do a 7 hour shift of work each day. Some children don’t even go to school and spend all their days working to make a living for their family. A lot of children in Oruro are sent from the countryside to work in the city. Some go to school but not many. These children often find their accommodation in big rooms throughout the city that they can pay about 4 Bolivianos (40p) to sleep in at night. These rooms often accommodate about 20-30 people who just sleep on the floor. In each situation a child is in danger. Their education suffers with not going to school at all, not having time to do their homework and in many cases not receiving encouragement and help from family. With so much time spent on the streets earning money and taking that back to your family (taking into account the 8/10 statistic of child abuse taking place in Bolivia), it becomes more and more appealing to keep the money for yourself and inevitably, as many children do, this leads to them one day taking the decision to leave their homes and become independent. At such an early age this is dangerous for a child’s development and personal safety.

Working with street children is a difficult task. Many would think if you walk up to a street child and simply offer them a home, bed, 3 meals a day, other friends to play with, an education, opportunities to play football, all in a warm, friendly environment with no strings attached it would be an absolute no-brainer. The fact that this job is so difficult points to the horrific childhood and upbringing many of these children have had. Abuse from parents, older siblings and other adults leads to a huge lack of trust. A severe lack in education leads to a huge lack in belief of a child’s own intellectual ability. The thought of being in a classroom is a nightmare. The independence of life on the streets with no role models, rules and instruction leads to a child having no desire to be put in an environment where there’s rules, rotas and a daily timetable to keep to. Of course many homes for children coming off the streets do their absolute best to ease children carefully into such a lifestyle but with such backgrounds the children have had it is a tentative process where just one incident or small dislike to a situation can lead to a child immediately running back to their life on the streets. This is why preventative projects (as written about in my previous blog) are so incredibly important. These barriers are massive and difficult to overcome.

Early Encounter Oruro has a strategy set out to help such children.

The first stage involves work on the street where the children are at. At the moment we visit 8 zones in Oruro. These zones involve markets, various streets selling anything and everything, busy roads where children are waiting for work to come by (mainly trucks with people heading to sites to carry out construction work), the plaza where people with high-profile jobs like to keep their shoes clean and shiny plus other areas. We visit these children weekly. We often head out with juice, biscuits and some form of an activity – a card game, puzzle, noughts and crosses. Anything really. Monthly we plan a group activity. This may involve playing football or other games. Such activities build friendships and trust.

The second stage involves inviting children to the drop-in centre that runs every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. This is a project in a Church in the centre of the city. At the project are games and snacks are served. Psychologists attend and the children can receive expert help and advice in anything they need. Spiritual support and encouragement and help with schooling are provided too. All this help provided is hugely influential in a child’s positive development. All of this is done in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere.

And the third stage, as friendships and trust are built to a good level, involves taking important life decisions that need to be taken. We help children find the living environment that is best for them and their development – whether that is reintegration back into a child’s family or to an extended family, a children’s home or to live independently with a good future ahead.

The barriers are difficult to overcome but there are always success stories, many of which are due to the hard work put in by the staff here at Early Encounter Oruro and to encourage you further, in other Early Encounter networks across South America supported by the help of those such as the Toybox Charity and Viva.

Three years ago, Early Encounter Oruro’s street educator, Wilma, started visiting a boy named Marcos shining shoes in the plaza. The whereabouts of his family are unknown and he spent each night sleeping in one of the big rooms that the city provides. Life was tough as Marcos had to provide for himself and school was way down on his list of priorities. With visits from Wilma their friendship and trust between them grew. With encouragement from Wilma, Marcos started attending school in the evenings. He continued his work in the day. As time went by he started attending the drop-in centre each afternoon receiving help in many areas of his life. When I arrived in January we always saw him on our visits to the children shining shoes in the plaza on Tuesday and Friday mornings. A few weeks ago a refuge called Casa Vida started up in the centre of Oruro, just across from the plaza. Marcos moved in a couple of weeks ago. He can now spend his days concentrating on his education and is now facing a good upbringing until he can become fully independent. This great story of what has happened in Marcos’ life is a great testament to the careful, friendly and sensitive work carried out by Wilma and many others part of the Early Encounter network. He’s now 15 and has seemed very settled and happy with himself the couple of times I have visited him and others at the refuge since it started up. Always, as with teens, there are difficulties. Yesterday he and a friend (also living at Casa Vida) were in a fight at school. But instead of dealing with such problems alone (or just ignoring them altogether and continuing down a bad road) he now has great support from a qualified team of educators at Casa Vida.

I could go on with more stories over the last year and a half but I realise this has gone on a bit so I’ll round it off here! Thanks for reading. Am looking forward to meeting Mum, Dad and Becky at the airport in Cochabamba tomorrow night. It’ll be ace to have them over and to visit the three Early Encounter networks that Toybox and Viva support in the Andean region – Cochabamba, Oruro and Lima. Mum and Dad have already been to Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala (see their blog - http://alastair-debbie-welford.blogspot.com/) Also Becky will be doing a blog while she’s over which she’s already started - http://bwsouthamerica.blogspot.com/

Hope all’s well in Blighty. Of course was gutted to miss out on all the wedding hype and event itself. I heard they’re selling William and Kate pillows over there??! Anyway, courtesy of a link from Dad’s facebook page, I hear the ceremony went something like this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav0FEhtLug

Enjoy!

Preventing that ‘street lifestyle’ – Projects

In my last blog I told you about the situation faced by the team here in Oruro in light of the problem of street children. As I said I’d tell you what the team do in response.

In Oruro children are in danger of developing a ‘street lifestyle’ increasing the likelihood of a transition from home to the streets. What contributes to this becoming a reality?

- Parents working long hours while children have time outside of school to do as they please.

- Abuse from home.

- Children working to earn money for their families, for parents who may be addicts. It takes a lot for addicts to be satisfied with what is brought to them.

- Being pushed by family problems and feeling mature enough to survive.

- Pressure from peers in similar situations.

I’m sure there are more. These are those that come off the top of my head.

School times for children in Bolivia are the following -

8am – 12:30pm

12:30pm – 5pm

5:30pm – 10pm

Mining and market jobs, which are in abundance in Oruro, often start very early around 7am and finish around 9pm in the evening. With family financial situations so tight babysitters just don’t seem to come into consideration. Every now and then our next door neighbours go travelling to Peru for 3-4 days to buy a load of clothing to sell on here in Oruro. They are happy to leave behind their 10 year-old son for this time. He walks to and from school and his parents leave behind enough food for him, although he’s often over ours for meals!

Children often have a whole morning or afternoon or sometimes the whole day free if they go to school in the evenings. They have homework, but of course could you imagine your 8/9/10 year-old son or daughter sitting down and voluntarily and enthusiastically doing all his homework without instruction and with his mates just next door? Thought not...

Children need guidance and encouragement in all areas of life. The Early Encounter network here in Oruro supports 7 projects. These projects are places where children can go before or after school to do their homework, get any help they need and be trained and encouraged in all that they are doing. They learn life-skills, have fun and are encouraged in their education and what they have the ability to achieve – items incredibly influential in a child’s development. These children learn a lot and their lenience towards a ‘street lifestyle’ is massively reduced beyond imagination.

I volunteer with two projects – “Maranatha” and “Soy la Nina de tus Ojos”. These are two fantastic projects that support the children in their neighbourhoods hugely. They carry out all the activities stated above and more. There are fantastically committed teachers and volunteers on hand to help at each. We all recognise the risk faced by the children in their neighbourhoods. It is great to have the opportunity to have such well-run projects in such dangerous and ‘street lifestyle’ appealing areas. A very special aspect about each project in Oruro is that each has a Church. Many of the children who go to the project in the week go to Church on the weekends as well as some of their parents, again bringing more opportunities to children and their families – to learn and search about what God has done for them. Monthly evening sessions take place in each project once a month. These often involve family training and feedback on their children’s school work. In each aspect this involves encouraging the parents to take seriously and encourage their children in their education.

Hope you enjoyed reading this one. In my next blog I will go into what Early Encounter Oruro do for children already in a ‘street lifestyle’ condition. Thanks.

For more photos see my facebook.

What did you get up to when you were a child at Christmas?

I look back on all the ace Christmases I’ve had – every one spent with family, always eating way way more than should be eaten, carol services, presents, seeing old friends, teasing the cat, 1kg chocolate bars, etc...

It was a shock to come back here, to see children spending their days and evenings working on the streets – in the markets, polishing shoes – but not just that, that many of these children are from countryside settlements and have been sent to the city to work since school finished in November for summer holidays until returning in February/March, without going back once in between. And this is normal practice for them each year – not having Christmas with their families.

In reference to the problem of children attracted to a street-living lifestyle – to work and/or live there, Oruro acts as what is called a ‘feeder city’. As mentioned in my previous blog, Oruro has a higher altitude and is colder than other Bolivian cities. The nights here get very cold making the streets an unattractive place to spend the night. Also Oruro is one of the poorest cities in Bolivia, meaning less is earned for polishing shoes and cleaning car windscreens than is in other cities. These two factors – Oruro being too cold to sleep on its’ streets at night and the desire to earn more money – push children to other cities such as Cochabamba, La Paz and Santa Cruz with the prospect to earn more and to be in a warmer, more survivable climate. By my experience so far there are not many children here working on the streets over the age of 14/15. Most of them are in the 8-13 bracket.

It has been identified when children feel they are mature enough they leave Oruro. This may involve going to live on the streets or to live with a relative or with/without a friend to a relative of theirs – an uncle, grandparent. In some cases going to a relative somewhere else could be a good move. The child could be running away from abusive parents and the relative may be willing to take care of the child with positive intentions. However this is often sadly not the case. A relative often takes a child into his or her home as a source of income, not out of love and compassion. The child’s welfare is not given a lot of attention and the child works for their new guardian. Again, this creates a situation where a child may be tempted to earn what they earn and stay on the streets keeping it to himself rather than giving it to someone else, someone else who may be an abuser and/or addict – and what is brought home is never enough for an addict.

Well this is the situation faced by the team here in Oruro. A lot of amazing work is carried out here by them to counter these problems and bring real hope and it’s been great to be a part of what they’re doing. I’m going to keep my blogs more snappy this time round so I’ll finish here and tell you what they do in facing up to these challenges in the next one.

First few weeks back in Bolivia

Well it’s now been 3 weeks back in Bolivia. Since coming back I have moved to a different city called Oruro, just four hours from where I was last year in Cochabamba. I will be staying here until late July and then returning to England. Being just four hours away however, Oruro is a completely different kettle of fish. Cochabamba, a city with a population of more than 1,000,000, at 8,600 feet above sea-level and present temperatures of about 33°c varies from Oruro with a population of 250,000, at 12,200 feet above sea level and present temperatures of about 21°c. To paint the picture, Oruro is a lot smaller. It is a lot more underdeveloped on the eye – basic construction taking place on wide scales, corrugated iron roofs, rubbish tips on every other corner often being taken apart by wild dogs (which I estimate would beat the human population), VERY bumpy roads. There are many areas just like this in Cochabamba but not to such the extreme as it is here. Oruro is often looked down on by outsiders. In many taxis I have been in or random conversations I have had with passers-by last year from Cochabamba who are interested in where I am from and what I am doing in Bolivia, “feo y frio” (ugly and cold) is how Oruro has often been described to me. However many will vent that the city has “la major gente” (the best people).

As a country but especially stemming from Oruro, the city has many different spiritual beliefs passed down by generation after generation of ancestors. These come from tales told by Andean ancestors that are still implemented today and of which certain practices are still undertaken. With disease, illness and poverty in abundance, there is a great fear and desire among society to hold on to and do/follow anything that may provide ‘buena suerte’ (good luck). Andean ancestors prayed and called to ‘Pachamama’ (mother land) and ‘Tio Supay’ (Satan Uncle). These practices have followed through generations and are still happening today. Many believe burying a llama’s foetus under your house in sacrifice to Pachamama will protect you, or if your house is bigger than normal, there are stories of humans being buried alive. In a Catholic Church in the centre of town is an entrance to a mine. In the mine two models of Tio Supay have been constructed – they are absolutely horrific. Miners leave offerings of cigarettes, money, alcohol and drugs so that Tio Supay (known as the God of the underworld) will protect them in the mines. It is natural for humans to chase protection and safety. As a Christian I believe this can be found in the person of Jesus Christ. I am glad my faith is built on more than ancestral tales but on real, solid historical evidence in the Bible. I urge anyone who hasn’t investigated the reliability of the Christian faith to do so. More than that, Christianity solves our real problem as human beings. Yes, we can pray to God for protection, but life is not all about hoping for an easy ride and having everything falling in place how we want it to. There is more to life than the 70/80/90 years we are here. I believe there is an eternity afterwards and where that is is determined by decisions made here. God has given us the freedom to choose. As a Christian I have realised my problem of falling way short of following and loving God as much as I should and I think it’s great and I am thankful that God himself provided the remedy by sending His Son into the world to take the punishment of what we deserve.

I did a few short visits to Oruro last year while I was staying in Cochabamba so I got to know the Early Encounter team and affiliated projects quite well. So I roughly knew what I would be in for. I am living with a great family – Noemi, the director of Early Encounter Oruro, Adolfo, head of Quality Improvement Training (QIS) but soon to be moving on to directing a newly-built children’s refuge and their 3 year-old daughter Carys.

In these first few weeks my time has been spent helping with Early Encounter Oruro’s work with children who work and live on the streets. I will write more about this in my next blog. As it is the beginning of the year, the Early Encounter projects in Latin America are planning all their work for the year ahead. This involves work with street-living and working children, quality improvement of projects, networking with projects and local Churches, how to go about working with local authorities, ‘protagonismo infantil’ (empowering children) and a lot more. Sitting in meetings discussing these areas has been of great experience for me. We are in the final week of the school summer holidays so next week when the projects are up and running again, mostly daycare centres, I will start doing two days a week with a couple of them.

It was a bit of a funny one adjusting back to life over here after having such a great Christmas in England with the family and friends. However as things have picked up and I’ve been getting stuck in to more it has got better. The team here in Oruro are really great and it is such fun working with them. No odd cuisine has been eaten yet but I’m sure some of that will come, especially after last years’ experience of sharing a pigs’ testicle with Toybox’ regional coordinator, Andrew Gray. Good times. As I said, I will blog next about Oruro’s work with children living and/or working on the street. Thanks for reading.

The start of the good treatment for children Vaccination Campaign

There are some moments in life you just can’t beat. Today, running around the Cochabamba equivalent of the Houses of Parliament with kids from the Fundacion Emmanuel project (ministry for children of prostitutes) campaigning for good treatment of children was definitely one of them. “Ok, this is an important government building with important people so you need to be good. Don’t run, don’t shout.” It just didn’t work. They went nuts, and who can blame them? The good treatment vaccination campaign is all about children voicing their rights. They approach adults with cards with on one side having ingredients for good treatment of children (a bit of respect, understanding, a portion of humour, an abundance of tolerance, a piece of patience, amongst others) and on the other side a space for the recipient to write their name, signature and date, to be vaccinated. And as well as the card and another leaflet they receive a sweet.

We went round in groups of three children. While one would be with one person in one office at their desk the other two would be legging it upstairs to the next one. I couldn’t run and catch them up and tell them to wait, leaving the other one behind, nor could I shout as we didn’t want to get kicked out. This was an awesome opportunity! The kids loved it, running up to the big dogs that run their city and campaigning for something they recognise as being of so much importance to them.

Today the campaign kicked off. We were in the Plaza Principal in the centre of Cochabamba. Throughout the month of September the campaign will be taking place in various areas all over the city. Also in the next city, Oruru, they are campaigning this month too. I will be heading there next week to see how they’re getting on. As well as children from projects vaccinating adults they put on performances too – dances, acts etc. As well as that, Daniel Cuaquira, Director of the Early Encounter Cochabamba programme, was on the mic all day, bigging up children’s rights, explaining what the whole campaign is all about and interviewing various people along the way.

Once again, it is great to see so many children’s projects getting together and working with all eyes on the same goal. That’s what the Toybox-Viva alliance is all about and has been successfully doing through the joint Early Encounter model (known as ‘Red Alert’ in the UK) over the last 4 years here in Cochabamba and in other Latin American cities. With the support of Toybox through planning, prayer and financial support, and with Viva Latin America implementing the work of the alliance out here on the ground, the results have been hugely positive with all boding well for a very exciting future.

All in all it’s been an awesome start to the campaign and everyone’s pumped and massively looking forward to the rest of the month.

Casa de Amistad - House of Friendship

Throughout this year I have been working with the Casa de Amistad project. The Casa de Amistad is a school for children who live in prisons with their parents. There are three prisons close by that the children come from. In most Latin American women’s prisons children are allowed to live inside with their mothers. Bolivia is the only country where the men’s prisons allow children and wives to live there too. In prison each person needs to pay rent for their room which are often only about 8x8 foot – certainly not enough space to fit a family, especially with families here averaging anywhere between 5-15 children (no exaggeration there at all). Those that cannot afford to pay rent sleep in corridors, any corners they can find and if they are lucky the prison chapel. In San Antonio prison every night in its chapel sleeps 30 men side by side with some children there too. Lunch is cooked by prisoners and has to be paid for. Prisons are controlled from the outside, by guards letting people in and out. They never enter. All leadership and rules are made by the prisoners inside. With the extra cost of being in prison it makes financial sense for the rest of the family to move in. There is often no other option but to do so with so many families in Bolivia under such financial constraints.

Such conditions put families under great strain and creates huge social difficulties. Families become desperate for money to cover their costs of living. Such is the need of many families is that as the children and other innocent parent leave the prisons in the daytime the children often end up spending their days selling whatever they can and begging in the streets to earn as much money as possible. With this being their daily life they therefore miss out on being educated, and without education this leads later on to a probable outcome of unemployment for them. With unemployment continuing so does the desperation to survive, and statistically speaking this leads many on to getting involved in crime - and so the process sadly continues. Pressure on children to provide financially for their families at such a young age, and with enough never being enough, often leads to the lure of running away and living elsewhere becoming more and more attractive.

The Casa de Amistad provides education for children from the prisons, right from kindergarten through to turning 18. The children receive a good education in a project run by qualified teachers and psychologists and they take their exams just in the same way as any other school receiving the same qualifications. As well as an education the children receive the psychological support they need. Sadly many children are victims of abuse in the prisons – physical, sexual and verbal. Such issues need to be carefully taken care of with the children and in collaboration with parents.

As well as providing a service for the children, communication with parents is an important part of the work too in order to emphasise to them the importance of an education for their children. There are about 90 children enrolled at the Casa de la Amistad. Daily attendance is often about 60-70. There are only a small number of children that attend every day. Many come just a few days in the week. Over the last year there has been about a 70% turnover in children. Consistency in attendance has always been a challenge. A common reason for children leaving the project or attending sparingly is parents having to weigh up the option of allowing their children consistent education or having them working on the streets and in the markets bringing in money in for the family.

Part of my role in helping has been visiting the two men’s prisons each week. In both there are a group of lads I meet up with. The aim is to focus on meeting with the men who have children in the project but there are always more who like to get involved. Consistent contact and encouragement with the parents is so important in order to keep the children attending the Casa de Amistad. We spend our time playing games and having a laugh, chatting through their problems, and if they are interested they take part in the Christianity Explored courses which I’m running. It’s all very relaxed and I’m often told how much of a difference it makes to have someone come and listen to their thoughts and stories without instantly judging and putting a label on them.

I work alongside a lady called Lourdes who is a psychologist at the project and heads up the prison visiting. She is an awesome lady with a huge heart for all that goes on at the Casa de Amistad. I cannot speak more highly of her and it’s been great working with her. Recently she attended a worldwide conference for prison educators that takes place every four years. This year it was in Stockholm. She had a great time there and received a big chunk of vital training with also opportunities to meet other prison educators. This was a special time for her and she has come back refreshed and with lots of inspiration and new ideas. With some of the money that those of you donated towards the 3 peaks challenge I did last summer and at Honfest 2009 we were able to help Lourdes out with her travels. She sends a HUGE thank you.