Social Work
Our families are assigned a social worker, who conducts monthly home visits and serves as the bridge between families and The Project. We call them guias, which means “guides” in Spanish, because they are entrusted with the important task of guiding families down the road to breaking out of poverty. They do this by referring individuals to counseling and legal assistance, and encouraging them to take advantage of the support available through The Project. Families who have broken the chains of poverty remain with their guia, preventing relapse into poverty through unemployment, illness or other developments. The social work department also coordinates special programs like food distribution, clothing drives, disaster relief efforts, and our new solar energy program.
Clothing Distribution
A lot of our outreach into more remote communities takes place at clothing distributions. Each year, The GOD´S CHILD Project gives away thousands of pounds of clothing, bedding, shoes, and other essentials to some of the poorest communities in Central America. Families walk for miles or ride busses for hours to attend our clothing drives, which often partner with the medical and dental clinics and Casa Jackson to form large field clinics.
Emergency Relief
When disaster strikes, our staff and volunteers are never far behind. Whether responding to heavy spring flooding in North Dakota and Minnesota or landslides and hurricanes in Central America, communities rely on The GOD’S CHILD Project to be there in their darkest hour.
Sponsorship
Sponsorship is a unique opportunity to connect and support one very special child. Sponsored children receive money for education costs, clothes, shoes, food and medical care every month. The families of sponsored children also benefit from access to a wide variety of GOD’S CHILD services. Currently, there are over 800 children being sponsored by almost 1,400 padrinos, or godparents. It costs US$150 to sponsor a child for a month. Many sponsors donate less than this, requiring multiple sponsors for each child in the program. Children maintain written contact with their sponsors, exchanging cards and holiday presents. Many GOD’S CHILD alumnae remain with their sponsors into adulthood, when they become fully self-supporting and request to be removed from the list…a proud moment for everyone involved.
Solar Energy
Through an exciting new partnership with Quetsol, a Guatemalan solar energy company that manufactures low-cost, high-performance solar power units. Families slowly pay off their unit at an affordable rate based on their income, creating a self-sustaining cycle. The GOD’S CHILD Project is seeking funds to provide a Quetsol solar unit for each home built by ServiceTeams in the coming year.