This story about volunteering with Fabretto actually began four years ago, when a friend returned to Colombia after working for eight years as a diplomat in France and Canada.
“Are you watching the news?” he said over the phone. “Thousands of children, starving, digging through a dump for food. How is it possible that this doesn’t move us? What kind of complacent country are we?” he added.
That day, we decided to stop blaming the current leader for everything that doesn’t work in Colombia. “If each of us donated time to our country, the world would be different,” we told ourselves. Thus began our “Volunteering for Colombia,” which involves setting a goal each year and working with volunteers to achieve the goal. For example, we recently built a house in a low-income neighborhood with guidance from the TECHO Foundation, and we donated musical instruments to youth who were going to be recruited as guerrillas (and here’s the report I did as I’m a journalist on this topic).
This year, the situation was different. We have two children studying in private schools because public education in Colombia is of very poor quality. The school has everything: computers, sports, languages, guest teachers. “There is nothing more difficult than educating in abundance,” they say. And it’s true. We call them bubble kids here. Three meals a day, a house, trips, education, clothes. Getting good grades and appreciating what they have is not so obvious and is quite a struggle. How is it possible that more resources lead to more anxiety, laziness, and taking everything for granted?
We then called our great friend Kevin Marinacci, CEO of Fabretto. Kevin is one of my husband John’s best friends. They met in Nicaragua in the late eighties. We’ve seen Kevin’s work through Fabretto with children and education. Each year, we donate money to Fabretto. Kevin was the one who suggested, “Why don’t you go to Honduras to volunteer with Asociación Colaboración y Esfuerzo (ACOES)?”
Lorenzo, the couple’s son, teaching math.
Honduras, after all, is the second poorest country in Latin America after Haiti. On June 13th, we arrived in Tegucigalpa with our youngest son, Lorenzo, who is 15 years old. After the abrupt closure in Nicaragua, we knew that Kevin, a person who is unstoppable in his effort to improve education, had found a way to support education in Guatemala and Honduras. He introduced us to Father Patricio Larrosa and Father Álvaro Ramos, the driving forces behind ACOES.
How to describe what happened in the two weeks we spent volunteering?
- We lived in a very small room in a house that only had water occasionally, which forced us to bathe with 1 liter of water a day. We lived with 24 young people who woke up at 4 AM; they prayed, cooked, worked on the ACOES community projects, studied in the afternoon, and cooked at night. Alone, without parents telling them what to do, with very tough life stories, full of smiles, discipline, and zero complaints. Is there anything more impactful than this example?
- John taught them English while we cooked with them. Lorenzo tutored the youth in math in the evenings. They are eager to learn everything! They end up touching the deepest part of your heart – they are beautiful human beings.
- Our son worked (or “contributed,” as they say there) 12 hours a day at Bombearte, a project from the University of Granada, Spain, which teaches art in four very poor schools with over 5,000 children. “They appreciate every lesson, object, and hug they receive. It impacted me a lot,” Lorenzo would say. He saw where they lived, in cardboard or dilapidated wooden houses without water, light, and food. He saw that school is their Disney World. Perspective – an incredible gift.
- We are not Catholics. Yet seeing what this pair of priests do with thousands of volunteers and wonderful missionaries, mostly from Spain, restores faith in the Catholic Church. They are consistent with what they say and then do. It is very impressive how they lift children out of absolute poverty with the help of donors, child sponsors, and a lot of work.
- John and I, as journalists, are advising the ACOES youth who work on marketing and communications on various publications. They never missed meetings, showed up with interest and enthusiasm, and asked thousands of questions. Working as a team, we managed to produce the first issue of their newspaper – El SoliDiario – completely reworked. I would love to see university students whom we teach here in Colombia be as enthusiastic as the ACOES volunteers.
- I interviewed several Spanish volunteers who are serving with ACOES. They had lost their taste for life in Spain where everything is done, nothing surprises, nothing excites. So much luxury empties the soul.
I returned very tired from my vacation in Honduras but with a full heart and soul. I prefer vacations where I’m tired on the outside but full on the inside. It has been one of the great experiences for us as a family. Thank you, Kevin and Fabretto, for taking us to Honduras to contribute!
