The Goals of this Trip
After speaking with Jenny Rogers, The KidSAKE Foundation executive director, the following are some of the goals of this trip and the future of The KidSAKE Foundation, as I understand it:
Objectives for this trip:
* Help set up the Clementina Martinez Foundation
- Clementina runs the children’s soup kitchen
- We’ve already donated the required 50,000 lempira (about $2,650) to begin an official foundation.
* Encourage literacy
- We brought books from the U.S. and have funds to take the headmaster to buy some here.
- We will paint the library at school.
- We will assess the needs of the school for future projects.
* Find out if there’s a map of the village. If not, we will create one.
* Begin work on a cookbook that compiles 15-20 recipes and stories of the Cane women who make the food.
- We’ve already gotten the materials for the cheese-making process and another recipe.
- Once it’s complete (after a year), it will be sold to raise funds, awareness, and preserve the culture.
* Work on research project
- Rogers, in an effort to encourage art and understand the Cane children better, is working on a research project that involves twenty Cane children receiving disposable cameras to take pictures of their community through their own eyes.
* Gather video footage, photographs, and articles of the people.
- These will be used to help market The KidSAKE Foundation for generating more interest and financial support.
* Visit UNILH, a non-profit Lenca Indian organization
- Try to arrange for them to make a performance later in the week
* Visit the prison in Marcala
- Buy some of their hand-woven baskets
- Get the stories behind the prisoners
* Visit orphanage
* Create a web page/blog
- You’re reading it!
Future goals of The KidSAKE Foundation:
* Ultimate goal: Help build a structure for Clementina’s foundation
- The plans have been drawn. It will contain a new soup kitchen with more modern appliances, a medical clinic, educational resource center, commercial kitchen, dorm rooms for visiting missionary or volunteers, and a meeting room as a place to train people.
* Encourage the arts and exchange ideas and art forms between the countries
* Find a “sister school” for Cane in the United States that will support and encourage them.
* Hold a high school-sponsored Honduran arts festival in Tennessee to raise funds for the new building.
* In future years hold an annual Gala event.