When I Go Back This Time

Last summer Anne-Milda Pu, a high school student from Lexington, MA, and her family traveled to Bolivia and met the children of Kaya. While initial expectations and hopes for the trip were to make an impact on the lives of the children there, the impressions made on her life were far greater. Upon returning to the states she has committed to helping the kids from afar--through her time, her resources, and even her artistic skills. This summer, Anne-Milda will return to the children with a team from Highrock Church, more equipped and even more enthusiastic about the new projects on her plate.

Last summer I traveled to Bolivia along with my family and a group of people from my church. The experience I had was completely life changing. Everything I saw challenged what I thought I knew and caused a passion to grow inside of my heart for helping street children. Our days consisted of touring La Paz and El Alto in the mornings and spending time at the Kaya Center in the afternoons. We taught the kids various subjects such as arts and crafts, Legos, wiffelball, and about electricity and the solar system. But amidst all the teaching we were doing, the kids taught us even more. What we learned were not facts, but rather life-long lessons. They taught us how to sincerely love life and how to make the most out of everything given to us. They taught us that knowledge is much more than reciting facts. Even though the kids had not been in school nearly as long as I have been to school, in many ways, they were so much smarter than me. They knew how to be creative and resourceful and how to be sincerely caring.

After last summer’s trip to Bolivia to visit Kaya, Kaya, and everything that the organization works for, has been on my heart. I began thinking of what I could do that would tie in my talents but that would also benefit Kaya. With that, I began painting and selling flower pots, donating all the money to Kaya. Also at my school, I became involved with in a club called Helping Our World (H.O.W). I introduced the club to Kaya and we contacted Kristin Huang asking about ways that we could help. We found out that the kids love getting mail and began writing letters to all of kids in the day program.

This July, I am looking forward to spending another week in La Paz. As last year’s trip was amazing in every way, all of this year I have been looking forward to hopefully going back. This year I believe that I will take away something even more deep and meaningful than last year. Last year, the initial fears of going to a country so different from the one that I am used to scared me. I was afraid of the altitude difference and the language barrier. I had no idea about how cold it was going to be there or what La Paz would look like. When I go back this time, I will know about how the altitude affects me, I will know that they speak Spanish very fast and I will know that, although it is in South America, it is very cold. I will be able to put these aside and focus on what I am going there to do. I will be taking Spanish classes in the mornings and then go to the Kaya Center and work with the kids there, hopefully painting a mural with them. I am so excited for this summer’s trip and hope that God moves me just as He did last year.

Running With A New Perspective

Six months ago, I ran because I felt had to. Now, when I wake up in the morning, I can’t wait to get out there and hit the pavement. What changed me was training for my first marathon, running Boston for charity. Exactly how this transformation happened is a mystery to me, but I have some ideas.

Running for Kaya, I was often struck by how much my perspective affected my behavior. Many times I was struggling with fatigue, wanting to quit, and then I thought of children living on the streets of La Paz. All of a sudden I found a source energy that I didn’t know that I had. For this reason, I recommend running for a non-profit organization. A friend of mine became enthusiastic about a certain organization, and she asked them if they would apply to be a Boston Marathon charity so she can run for them. They are in the process now of applying!

Listening to worship music while I run has become a way that I spend time with God. I used to think of my “quiet times” with my Bible on my couch as my best time with God. Now, when I plan my week and the runs that are scheduled in it, I get excited about the time I will have with God on those runs. I look forward to getting to hear the worship songs on my iPod, like “Gloria” by Watermark, “See What a Morning” by Keith and Kristyn Getty, and “Agnus Dei” by Michael W. Smith. Running in beautiful places like Fresh Pond or along the Charles River draws me even closer to Him. I love both listening to worship music on its own and running on its own, but the best is getting to do the two simultaneously.

Until this experience, I thought of running as a solitary sport. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Both my training and the marathon itself were communal experiences for me. In fact, two of the friends who started running with me have started dating seriously and are currently on a Memorial Day weekend vacation together! The morning of the marathon, my sister flew up from Dallas, TX, eight-months pregnant. I hadn’t even asked her to come, but she just wanted to be there. I’ll never forget seeing her jumping up and down on the sidelines as I turned a corner on Heartbreak Hill.

The city of Boston came alive to me as I was running. I have never experienced Boston as being so friendly, supportive, encouraging, helpful, gracious and inspiring as I did on April 19, 2010. I connected with so many strangers that day. Jean, a qualified runner from New Hampshire whom I met on the T on the way to board the buses to Hopkinton, told me her favorite blister bandage (Hannaford brand). To me, this information was gold! I couldn’t believe how many people turned out to cheer. A friend of mine who was waiting in the crowds to see me said she was so touched watching a father explain to his daughter how important it is to help the runners. He was handing orange wedges to her so she could hold them out to us. A friendly stranger offered me a pack of “Gu” (a sports food) when I looked tired. A grandmother offered me fresh baked cookies. I wore my name taped on my shirt, and people shouted encouragement to me the entire time.

One of the joys of this experience came from overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Last fall, my knees would hurt whenever I went up and down stairs. I worried that my cartilage was wearing down or I was getting arthritis and my running days were coming to an end. After six months of strength training, I have virtually no knee pain anymore, and I run at least three times a week. One key has been not to do squats and lunges, which my podiatrist said are not good for women. I regularly hear people say that they don’t run because their knees hurt. What they may not realize is that while some people may have serious knee problems, knee pain also may go away when the muscles around the knees become stronger. Also, at times physical discomfort inhibits people from running. I found that wearing CW-X brand of running clothes helped a lot. In short, these days, there is a solution for most problems.

Now that the Boston Marathon 2010 is over, I’m setting new goals to keep my muscles from hitting a plateau. This weekend, I’m running the Rock n’ Roll half-marathon in San Diego, and I’ve set a goal time for myself. For anyone out there who is feeling inspired, the home page of Runner’s World will help you find any distance of race in any city you want to run. It’s a great way to support many organizations doing amazing work.

Changing One Life, One Attitude At a Time

Joshua Lee is a freshman at Belmont Hill School. He visited Kaya Children in Bolivia during summer of 2009, and wrote an essay about his experience for an essay contest, for which he placed second. The following is an excerpt from his essay.

My mind tunes in and out of the ensuing conversation as I shift my weight restlessly in my chair. My eyes are focused on the table before me, and I think about the people sitting around me, who have illuminated the darkness of the world their entire lives.

Suddenly, I am almost 4000 miles away in the heart of La Paz, Bolivia.

I inhale the over polluted air and shift my weight uncomfortably due to the human feces surrounding my feet, my eyes darting around, surveying the scene in front of me. My eyes lock onto a single beat-up mattress that lies on the insect-infested ground. And on this broken, overused mattress, I know that boys no older than I am will sleep here tonight. I can imagine how it will look only a few hours from now. Boys huddled together, trying to coax warmth out of each other’s malnourished bodies, rabid dogs at their sides, and police walking up to them, not to help, but to beat them and take what few possessions they have. Trucks roar past my left and right, and the sudden, sharp wall of wind brings me back to the present.

On this mattress a boy looks my way, and I try not to stare at him, but I cannot look away. I see two scars running down both sides of his cheeks. This is reality. And right now, I am truly seeing reality in front of me for the first time. I look into his eyes, and I see troubles and experiences that nobody in the world should have to go through at such a young age. Or any age for that matter. I see a boy who was kicked out of the house at a young age, and turned to drugs as an escape. Stealing was not an option, but a necessity. His hair is damp from a bath he recently took, but I would not be surprised if he was dirtier than before, seeing that he bathed in the second-dirtiest river in the world. He gets up and starts to walk across the busy street, not even looking either way. He gets to the other side all right, but I can tell that he would not have minded if he did not.

Just a week before, I was on top of the world, literally. 30,000 feet above sea level and half way around the globe – in La Paz, Bolivia – realizing that there is a world outside of my privileged private school education and my loving family and friends.

I know that there are millions of people in Bolivia, and all around the world – some of whom I had just seen a week ago – who would give anything to be in a warm house full of people who love you more than you will ever know. To be in a place where you can walk down the street without worrying about being mugged and even killed. Looking down at the crumbs from my second serving of pie, I wonder when the last time the street kids there had seen a second serving of anything.

I always hesitate calling them “street kids” though. Because the word “kids” implies a certain amount of innocence. For these “kids” innocence was lost before they had the faintest idea of what it means. At an age when I enjoyed Legos and was learning about plants, the boy on the mattress enjoyed the high of paint thinner, and was learning how to steal. People steal, mug, and kill every day to survive in a world so vastly different from our own.

So one year, a man who now attends my church, Dr. Chi Huang, went down to Bolivia and started a home for these street children. Last summer my friends and I went down to see the fruits of his labor: three fully accommodating homes where children can live and receive an education. Children from six to sixteen come into these homes and change their lives forever. These children are given another chance at life, and this year the organization, Kaya International, is sending its first group of boys, to college, where each of them will have a chance to follow their dreams. Kaya means tomorrow, and Dr. Huang, his employees, and his volunteers all strive to give these children a better tomorrow.

I am wondering why it is bad that I take some things for granted. I sit on this for a moment and replay my time in Bolivia. The memories are not of the boys I saw on the sides of the roads, some knocked out by drugs and some on their way there. They are of the people who take those same boys into their homes as often as they can to give them another chance at life. The memories are not of the scene of man-made tarps that thousands of people call home. Rather, they are of the people who visit those tarps as often as they can, bringing food for everyone, which could possibly be their only meal for a long time. I see these people, who have devoted their whole lives to helping those in need, and I recognize what their attitude is. They do not take things for granted. They appreciate what they have. Why? Because every day, when they go out and feed children, who would die without their help, they know that they could have been born right next to them on the street. But instead they were born into a privileged family, in the United States of America, in one of the best hospitals in the world, in Boston.

Dr. Huang, the founder of Kaya International, says he often wonders why he was not born like the people he serves, on the streets, left to die. He asks God why he is privileged and these people are not. He says that he knows it is because he was made to serve these people, who did not get what he did. So he does. And so I will. Because I see now why it matters that I am unappreciative about luxuries that others could not even dream about.

It comes down to my attitude. And it is my attitude that gets me to sacrifice a summer to plan, and eventually fly across the world to help that person in need. It is my attitude that will get me to make the oblivious around me aware of the truths of the world. It is this attitude that separates the “oh-that’s-too-bad” person, and the person who thinks it is so bad that they will devote their lives to make it better.

If I had to single out one person who was impacted the most by our trip to Bolivia I would choose myself. Because the work we did in Bolivia, over those two weeks, just made a drop in the bucket. And if I want to fill this bucket – of drugs, starvations, and violence in Bolivia – up, faster than it gets deeper, I will have to change my whole attitude.

This is why it matters.

Thinking of Kaya

Anna Poledňáková volunteered with Kaya in Bolivia during summer 2009. She is an economics student from the Czech Republic.

It has been already a few months since I left South America and Kaya and still, from time to time, I catch myslef singing Daddy Yankee's songs, looking for a white minibus or just going through all the memories I have.

As I said at my little good-bye party with the local staff, when I was planning my trip to Bolivia I was sure I would have a great time, but I never thougth that it would be such an amazing experience as it was. Kaya is not an organization, it is a family and I feel really grateful that I was alowed to be a part of it.

Before I entered its office in La Paz for the first time I didn't know a lot about the issue of street children and although I tried to prepare myself for the poverty and bad living conditions the experience from the street outreach in El Alto remains as one of the saddest and deepest experience of my life.

On the other hand it was wonderful to watch the progress made by Kaya concerning the kids

already settled in the organization. In spite of everything they must have gone through, they are ready to open their little hearts and accept you as a friend, to trust you and to share their dreams and doubts with you. They let you be a part of their life and bless you with boundless love and happiness.

Thinking of Kaya, there are so many beautiful moments coming to my mind. Once in the minibus on our way home from the movies I saw how one of the boys covered the another one with the blanket because he was sick. They remained ly ing next to each other like two brothers. It is difficult to describe how it feels, it is just that there was so much love in everything they did. With them even the ordinary activities like doing homework or washing clothes became something special. It was so funny watching them playing, dancing…just being kids. It felt so good to grab their tiny hands, to give them a hug or make them laugh.

I will never forget any of these moments and the awareness of a place where people gave priority to well-being of their fellowmen before their own profit, where people care about each other and love each other encourages me to be a better person and spread the positive spirit.

The Situation of Street Children

A goal of Kaya Children’s mission is to not only serve the children in our program, but to also reach out to those children still living on the streets. Kaya has a street outreach team that goes out onto the streets and visits with these street children two times a week – Monday night and Saturday morning. The team offers first aid and shares snacks with the children, with the purpose of cultivating a friendship with the children and encouraging them to leave the streets. The goal of the street outreach team is to help street children believe that they have the capacity and the skills for a better life – a life with purpose.

It has become increasingly difficult to live on the streets. The problems that street children face are several and varied. Street children experience the rejection of their own families, as the majority of children living on the streets come from families with a stepfather or stepmother who mistreats the children, resulting in the children’s biological parents rejecting their children as well to be accepted by their new partner. Street children furthermore face discrimination from society as a whole. Authorities do not let them stay in one place for long, will burn the children’s shelters and belongings, and abuse them. There is also a lot of abuse within the street children population, oftentimes with the older children abusing the younger ones. Ironically enough, one of the greatest problems street children face is the extortion of the police who will use violence or intimidation to coerce children into stealing items such as cell phones, which the police will either take or buy from the children. While the conditions of living on the streets have stayed mostly constant since earlier times, the increase in police corruption is evident and a growing problem.

Although it is difficult to completely repair the situation, it is imperative that we make an effort to address this issue. We can do this in three ways: prevention, rescue, and strategic alliances.

Prevention: It is important to work specifically with families at risk in order to prevent children from leaving their homes for the streets before they actually make that transition. This can be done through therapy, training, and counsel for the children’s parents and the enrollment of children into our day program or an equivalent to ensure structure during children’s free hours, when they are more susceptible to wandering the streets.

Rescue: The street outreach team deals specifically with this issue. We want to provide the opportunity for a better life to the children who are already living on the streets. Our goal is to build friendships with these children while they are still on the streets and encourage them to enter our residential program, with the purpose of helping them reintegrate into society. This is supplemented through working with the children’s families to equip them with the tools to support the smooth transition of the children off the streets, into our program, and eventually to their own independence.

Strategic Alliances: It is important to also build relationships and work in conjunction with other institutions and organizations that contribute different services, such as with local universities that offer trained students who intern as tutors with us, so that we can utilize these services and provide the children in our program with high quality care and services.

Undoubtedly, the street children’s situations is enormous and the work is arduous; however, it is not impossible to work to help these children. At Kaya Children, we believe that each child is important and that we need to serve those in need – those who are without a family, without love, and without hope – so that we give them another opportunity to have a more purposeful life and dream of a better future.

New Partnership with Boston College Research Team

We are pleased to announce a new partnership with Dr. Belle Liang, PhD., an Associate Professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Dr. Liang, along with her research team – Sophia, Helen, Rachel, Nicole, and Miao – will be collaborating with Kaya Children on a study of school experiences with street-involved youth, helping us analyze data collected over the summer by a team of medical students from the University of Rochester. The purpose of this study is to develop a deeper understanding of the relationships of street-involved youth in La Paz, Bolivia and the local school system, particularly addressing factors associated with student drop-out.

School drop-out is a major factor leading children to full time life on the streets in Bolivia. According to Executive Director Kristin Huang’s dissertation research, despite the fact that school is an incredible opportunity to intervene and promote youth resilience, many street children rarely view school as a positive alternative to home life. However, while street children dislike school, they do highly value education. This suggests that because street children assign so much value to being able to graduate from high school and “become somebody,” a positive school experience would help them in other aspects of their lives.

One of Kaya Children’s goals is to “conduct, disseminate and encourage research that informs best practice with street-involved children.” To this end, we partner with universities to facilitate research that allows us to understand what is most effective in intervention and work to translate these findings to practical plans of action for practitioners in the field. Our partnership with the Boston College research team especially demonstrates this value in action, to which many of the team members attest. Helen, agrees that “this willingness for partnership proves significant in that a symbiotic relationship of intervention with research would increase efficiency and reduce duplications in service, raise global awareness, and translate successful qualities of Kaya’s intervention to diverse organizations in the world.” Sophie explains that “as a team dedicated to advancing social justice through every aspect of our work, we are particularly excited to partner with Kaya in seeking to give voice to disempowered youth around the world, and working with larger systems to bring about meaningful social change.”

Through this partnership we will be able to have high quality research analysis done, while engaging with local universities to raise awareness of the situation in Bolivia with street children. This research will not only inform scholars of the needs of street-involved youth, but will also provide practitioners with meaningful and accessible material so that they can develop effective programs to help reinforce children’s transition processes off the streets and to strategically intervene before children establish full lives on the streets. “The large number of children living on the streets in Bolivia has been a significant social issue. Withdrawing from the school system, these children are facing the risk of losing their opportunity for education, and make the process of reaching out of poverty much more difficult, which produces a vicious circle. [This partnership] is a great opportunity to adjust the organizational system, and work toward the promotion of social justice work,” says Miao.

Lessons from Former Street Children

Stephanie Kuei volunteered with Kaya in Bolivia for two months this past summer. She is now continuing to support Kaya as a Communications Intern at the US office.

How do I even begin to put words to everything I experienced this summer working with Kaya Children in Bolivia? I honestly had no idea what an abundant experience was in store for me. Since I have been participating in volunteer trips abroad every summer since the seventh grade, I thought I could predict what I would be doing in Bolivia, what I would feel, what I would learn. I prepared myself for the poverty I expected to witness and for living conditions that would not be as comfortable as living at home. I left California -- reassuring my mom that I would be safe -- with minimal knowledge of Bolivia or the plight of street children, and equipped only with a smattering of high school Spanish.

When I arrived in Bolivia, any preconceived notions I had of what my trip was going to be like were shaken and eventually shattered. Whether it was seeing the boys in their school uniforms (especially the four who will be graduating from high school this year and going off to college), playing cards with them, or cheering them on as they kicked a soccer ball around, I loved being able to see them just be kids. It was wonderful knowing that, because of the opportunities given to them through Kaya, they were reclaiming their childhood and daring to dream of the future. The two times I had the opportunity to work on the streets placed a burden on my heart for the street children of Bolivia and further emphasized the positive transformation I witnessed in the boys at the center – they take pride in their appearance, in their work, and, most importantly, in each other. As one of the teachers said, “these boys are not escaping from their problems, but rather they are facing reality and growing from it.”

Whenever I go to volunteer somewhere, I bring with me this lofty idea of the inspiring person I am going to be, of all the new things I will be able to teach the people I work with, and of the positive change I will be able to make in someone’s life. However, this summer it was definitely the boys of Kaya who were my inspiration, who taught me so many more things than I could ever have possibly taught them, and who changed my life. I learned so much from each of them – from playing new (and sometimes ridiculous) games, to having my Spanish corrected over and over again, and to being shown what true affection really is. It was such a blessing to have been able to get to know each and every one of the boys during the two months I spent in Bolivia, and it was a joy to see each of them grow individually. I am so thankful that I got to experience the tremendous love that they have in their beautiful hearts. I now have a family in Bolivia as well, and it delights me to know that my departure was not a definitive goodbye, but only the beginning of a wonderful relationship with Kaya Children.