Thank you for the notebooks!

Now our school in School in Hipolito Argentina, Star of Hope has been able to buy us some cool notebooks that we like a lot. Some of our friends need sponsors too, maybe it's you. It would be so nice if more of our friend had sponsors then we all could be together.

P.S. Our children are so proud of their notebooks. If you know someone who would like to sponsor a child, please "Tell a Friend" to send them a message.

Once again Metro Manila and the Philippines is hit by a disaster. Torrential rains have battered the megacity and floodwaters have poured in from almost all sides. Just five weeks ago most of Manila was under water and now it is headed that way.

We do not have an update from our projects yet but will post here as soon as we do, in the meantime please give to the dissaster fund. The following photographs are from five weeks ago.

Dennis Thern a Star of Hope Blogger produced a series on "water", Star of Hope combined the series into an article for your reading. 

 New water-related disaster in the Philippines. New water-related disaster in Haiti. At the time of writing we don't know how difficult Haiti is hit. But the little I learned so far several Star of Hope projects are affected in one way or another. Now we keep our fingers crossed that nothing really has gone wrong.

Your gift is needed more than ever. You can donate here on the website.

I will in the next few days blog and tweet about water in general and what it means in various Star of Hope projects around the world.

Some facts about water: 97% of all water on Earth is salt water. 3% is fresh water, 70% of it is frozen in the polar ends.

Less than 1% of the world's fresh water is available for humans.

Access to clean drinking water and sanitation - still the most important factor for development. Those countries with large portions of population that lack access to safe water and sanitation show slower economic growth than those have it. Unsafe water and sanitation is the cause of one tenth of all cases of sickness globally.

Urban populations have increased by 53 per cent since 1990, but access to urban sanitation grew by only 2 per cent. This cause big problems when countries and cities are not prepared for these fast pace changes. A poorly developed country, like Haiti, is a good example for that. Access to clean drinking water and sanitation are far and beyond even in the national capital Port-au-Prince.

At the seven schools and the children home sponsored by Star of Hope we always tried to supply clean drinking water. At all projects we have now increased the efforts for this very important issue. At all the projects we work the children, staff and villagers now have access to safe drinking water, but further improvements might be needed.

The need for safe water in Haiti has been extra important since the cholera outbreak in October 2010. With still many new cases of cholera two years later, there is a big risk that this will increase further after that tropical storm Isaac passed over Haiti over the weekend. There is also a major risk for other waterborne diseases. Is Haiti prepared for another outbreak?

At the time of writing the over all damages seems less than when Hurricane Thomas passed over Haiti in 2010 and left 20 people dead. However, some of the Star of Hope projects and schools are affected. Details are sketchy for me; at least a couple schools lost their roof. And many families close to other schools live in very poor houses and have moved in to the schools. Lets hope that damages are limited.   

Resolutions adopted by the United Nations in 2010 and 2011 recognize access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right. While several nations have implemented this right and worked proactively to increase water and sanitation coverage, some nations
still have chosen not to recognize this right.

But who is to pay for water and sanitation supply?

 In 2002, World Leaders committed to the eight Millennium Development Goals, Goal 7 of which is “to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people with sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation”. The world is on track to meet the drinking water target, but at current levels of progress will miss the sanitation target by 700 million people. 

The sanitation and health story is usually told in numbers, and most of the news is not good. 884 million people – about half of who live in Asia – still rely on drinking water from unimproved sources such as ponds, streams, irrigation canals and unprotected dug wells. 2.5 billion (two in five) lack access to safe sanitation. 3.6 million people die each year from water-related diseases, 43 per cent of which are due to diarrhea. Most, 98 percent, are from developing countries and 3 million of which are children under fourteen. 5 000 children under age 5 are killed every day by diarrhea alone.

Star of Hope has improved the water issues at various projects around the world. In one of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti, Star of Hope has dug wells, built water reservoirs, and so on to improve the water security level for some 3 000 sponsored kids and their families. But we want to do more. More has to be done and we all have to it together. 

Around the world millions of people lack access to safe drinking water. They spend hours fetching water from wells, streams and other sources. They walk for miles on steep narrow paths. And very often the water they bring home is not even clean…

Every morning children are late to school bringing water to their homes, maybe they even know they will be sick.

Support Star of Hope and we can together help many children to have access to safe drinking water.

Press Release, Sept,11 2012

Contact: Barry Borror
Star of Hope
Phone : (866) 653-0321
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Star of Hope Asking For Five Work Teams for Haiti

In the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac Five Work Teams are Needed in Haiti to Strengthen Roof Structures on Five Schools

Ellinwood, KS, September 11, 2012: Star of Hope is asking churches, groups and individuals to participate in hurricane damage mitigation by sending teams of workers to Haiti over the next 11 months. These teams will install hurricane ties on the roofs of five schools, as well as perform other tasks to prevent future storm damage. A total of five teams are needed the first in November, the last next August. Teams of six are needed for one week visits. Each team is asked to cover their own costs of $1,200 per team member and raise the funds for the materials needed for the school they will work on, averaging $1,400 per school.

Carpentry is only one of many skill sets needed.

Interested groups or individuals should contact Star of Hope at their office at 13 N Main St, Ellinwood, Kansas or call them at (620) 564-3355 for more information. Additional information is also available on their website www.starofhope.us.

Star of Hope® is a faith based non-profit based in Ellinwood, Kansas with projects that extend across the world in sixteen countries. Star of Hope exists to equip children across the world with knowledge, physical well-being, spiritual growth and social skills through educational programs and local and international partnerships.

 Download press release "workteams 2012.pdf"

Haiti Schools open this year October 1st 2012, once month later than usual. The Haitian President declared the late start of the school year to allow the people of Haiti one more month to save up cash for the costs involved in sending their children to school. (A problem that most Americans never face, at least until college.) Over the summer, Star of Hope Haiti has been working with each school project to prepare for the academic year 2012-2013.

In addtion to the school fees that is the major financial load for the parents for school opening, it's also a heavy load for parents having to buy school uniforms, books and school materials for their children. Your child sponsorhip gift makes it possible to assist the child with subsidies for the school fees, school uniforms and some school books to 3,050 children. This support all combined represents 80% of the educational cost for the children paid by you and Star of Hope while the 20% costs that remain are for the parents to pay and represent the ability for the parents to retain their pride as they take their financial responsibility toward their children's education.

In Haiti, all children go to school wearing school uniforms that usually is a set of 2 colors that identify and differ one school from another and a way to reduce the parents expense regarding school clothing. Uniforms are not available in any store. As supported by Star of Hope and made available to each school, parents when ready go to the school to get the raw material for their children, in turn they will hire a local seamstress or tailor to sew.

Emelyne 8 years old

When we visited Hesse last Friday, we have met Emelyne Lamour who was happy to come with her father to take out her school books and fabric to make her school uniform. But daddy was able to take out only 1 set of uniform for Emelyne to wear for 10 months because he could not even cover the sewing costs for two sets of uniforms for his 4 girls and 1 boy,Emelyne's brother and sisters. In general children need 2-3 sets of uniforms a year to keep a clean look at school. But due to the cost of fabric, SOH is able to give only 1 set per child. By consequence, parents are obligated to wash and iron almost every day the uniform, single uniform students will definitely have faded and worn out uniforms at the end of the school year.

Emelyne is 8 years old and can't understand why her daddy is worried. For herself, she just can't wait to meet her friends in 2nd grade the same ones she started preschool with. Emelyne would like to be a teacher when she grows up, but meanwhile, she is enjoying helping her mom at home to cook, clean the dishes and go the get water in the water fountain close to the school project which is about a 5 minute walk from her house.

Emelyne's parents are very thankful to Emelyne's sponsor who has contributed to put her through school. They said, without this huge contribution Emelyne would not be able to go to school like many other children in her village because of the high cost of education and their weak economic status.

Myrtha Dor, Director, Star of Hope, Haiti

Preschool teachers training with well accepted "Step By Step" methodology has finished. They were a total of 30 teachers from 7 preschool projects that star of hope supports in Haiti. This groups of teachers had participated in 3 weeks of combined training sessions, it was about technique, pedagogy and method to teach in preschool base on democracy principles, participation and cooperative. Teachers had been also trained to make and prepare preschool teaching materials themselves,a most empowering series. The children will benefit tremendously from the new skill sets the teachers have acquired.

Step By step, will start the fallow up process in October to assist teachers in the class-room, to make sure they apply the preschool teaching programs and have enough materials. The follow up will last three months or so depending on the individual teachers performance and qualification. The trainer will decide who deserves a certificate of preschool program achievement. Two babies were present in the training because the mothers could not find caretakers. This process will keep the level of education the children receive on a much higher level. You can get involved too,be a sponsor.

Star of Hope Haiti: text and photo Tony B