With three facilities now, that not only feeds but provides educational opportunities that were limited or unavailable for children from age three though high school before, the organization advances despite adversity.
“The past year has been a difficult one but a good one,” Mrs. Somarriba said. “Difficult in that we acquired a school with over 1,000 students and then we added a pre-school that was not there before. We have gone from 90 pre-school students to now 180.
“In the high school we graduated 77 last year,” she continued. “Besides their high school diplomas those young people left us with a certification in computer and in accounting or secretarial skills. They had the basic computer program skills – Excel, Word, PowerPoint. Next year we will have 75 graduates and we have added a program of career training.”
Because of government educational mandates, all the students had to learn typewriting skills – on real typewriters. But, now the program will be enhanced from mere secretarial to more of an executive assistant training.
“We have had to crawl before we could walk,” she continued. “Even with the government mandates that they learn typewriter skills, we want these young people to have total computer skills.”
In addition to classroom work, the young people who graduate also gain on the job training.
“In the last three years of high school, these graduates will have accomplished 480 hours of apprenticeship in a private enterprise,” Mrs. Somarriba said. “We want them to leave us prepared to work in the private sector.”
These children will have come from a place where they had little or not chance at a reasonable future but the school will have given them the ability to fend for themselves and provide for a family.
“You have to remember that this was the first year of taking on these high school graduates,” she continued. “We plan each year that these young people will be even more prepared. We are working with a group that is giving them even more life skills.”
Dr. Patricia Corasco, who heads the high school, was accompanying Mrs. Somarriba on the spring sojourn in Southwest Louisiana. Dr. Corasco has been with the organization since its inception in 2000. The centers have a team of social works, psychologists, and physicians who have the task of monitory the welfare, emotion, and physical development of the students.
“They work with the children’s emotional issues,” Dr. Corasco said. “We work on teaching them discipline and responsibility and they help them understand things in the new world offered to them by education and working to meet the needs of each child.”
Because of the culture of the country and the dire poverty of the people, many of these children will never have learned about the power of team-building and collaboration at home.
“We teach them how to work together because they don’t learn a lot of that at home,” Mrs. Somarriba said. “In their homes it will be one family is the enemy of another family.”
The original school, which was led by Dr. Corasco, began in 2000 and sits in one of the largest informal markets in Central America and those students have been taught collaboration from the beginning.
“We have taught and are teaching them to get along with each other,” she continued. “This is something our market children learned from years back but these new students are learning it anew, the business of being responsible.”
One of the hopes from last year has also been realized, with the opening of a bakery. This was a project that would provide students with additional career training opportunities.
“We have opened a bakery in the big school and it is going wonderfully,” Mrs. Somarriba said. “We’ve been open three or four months and we are not in a rush to do things all at once. The young lady who runs it is still learning. We sell all our products to the school cafeteria or use them ourselves in the feeding program, though we have already begun selling to the community.”
Another difficulty of previous years, not having enough textbooks for each student, has been remedied to a certain extent.
“We began the last school year with $8000 in donations allotted to books, so all our classes have textbooks, but not every child,” she continued. “There is still a need for sharing, about one book for each five students.
“This is a great accomplishment,” she continued. “This is a much lower ratio than in previous times when there was only a single book for an entire class.”
Challenges will always be there but Mrs. Somarriba and Dr. Corasco along with the other staff and faculty of all the facilities look to God for his divine help and inspiration.
The Johnnie Thibodeaux Jr. Memorial Golf Tournament has been of prime assistance to the organization for a number of years and this year netted $20,000. Monsignor Daniel Torres will lead 33 Abrazando Cristo missionaries to Nicaragua, leaving on Saturday, July 2, on a weeklong trip to help in the Dioceses of Granada and Matagalpa.
“Father Torres and Susan Thibodeaux do a lot for Pan y Amor,” said Mrs. Somarriba. “Father Torres is our spiritual guide.”
Contributions are always welcomed by and for more information go to http://www.es.panyamor.org.ni/ or Google Asociación Pan y Amor.
