What is it like to be a vulnerable child in Guatemala?

Being placed in orphanage after orphanage. Praying you and your siblings won’t get separated. Fighting for your life. Receiving little to no education. Malnourishment. Hoping that the next place you end up won’t be like the last- where you’re taken advantage of, beaten, or burned. Fending for yourself. Not knowing when you'll be able to have a meal or a bath or a safe place to sleep.

For Jimmy, a previous resident of the school and orphanage Hogar Rafael Ayau, being orphaned in Guatemala meant denying a victim mentality and building a wall of strength, distrust, and independence that no small child should ever have to construct. After running away with his siblings from their abusive parents, Jimmy bounced between orphanages that he described as “child prisons” where abuse ran rampant and a child was merely a number. Most were so horrible, he’d find a way to run away and sleep on the streets. The streets, where surviving is your only goal, felt more safe.

This all changed when Jimmy and his two sisters got placed at Hogar Rafael Ayau, where a group of nuns have provided a home, school, church, family, and most importantly: hope, since 1996. For the first time in his short life, Jimmy felt safe. He had found the love and hope he had never had before. He learned that he didn’t have to be so tough- he was a child, and accepting love and shelter was okay and needed. He finally was able to break down those walls and learn to be loved and to love back.

To be a vulnerable child in Guatemala (for example, orphaned, poor, special needs, or abused) means that the only thing keeping you alive is the chance for something better. For Jimmy this was the opportunity to be adopted. He worked hard in school, helped around the orphanage, and in 2002 he and his siblings were adopted by a family in the United States.

Rafael Ayau has had a rich history of supporting Guatemalan youth. Today, Rafael Ayau has grown and flourished. It provides so much more than shelter and a home for displaced children.

They are a full time home for 11 special needs children, 13 adolescents and 14 young males with the dream of living happy and healthy lives.

They are one of very few schools in the country that provide for special needs kids. They provide free education to 80 of these children.

They are a school dedicated to preserving the Mayan culture, a trade school applicable to earn a living, and the founding place of the free of charge online university.

These critically important accommodations are in serious and crucial danger of being taken away from these children.

Hogar Rafael Ayau has been evicted and given 30 days clear their property, leaving all children displaced. 300 high risk children will lose the support they receive there daily. 11 special needs children are going to lose the roof over their head, food to survive, clothes to wear, and mothers to be loved by. 80 special needs kids will have nowhere to go to be educated. Located in the most dangerous part of the country, zone 1, the 13 adolescents and 14 university students who live in the home will end up on the streets plagued with gang activity. All of the students who travel there each day for refuge and education will fall susceptible to abuse and gang violence.

The importance of Hogar Rafael Ayau is easily understood by one mother who, every single day, pushes her special needs son an hour and a half through Guatemala City to get him to school in the mornings and to take him home at night. She says that even though she is tired and it is hard, she will do anything for her son to be a good student. If that option is taken away, he will have nowhere to grow and she will be helpless to provide that for him.

The hundreds of children who come everyday to go to school on this property will be robbed of their chance to be educated, safe and loved. Many of these children will end up in the homes Jimmy described as “child prisons.” Not only are hundreds of children losing their sense of home, their school, and their family, but they will also lose hope.

To lose hope is to lose everything. It is the only thing that kept Jimmy alive when he was on the streets and between homes. He says he still doesn’t know how he managed to survive, if not for the hope of something better. They want nothing but to be able to learn and reach their full potential. It is more than a tragedy to take this away from Guatemala’s vulnerable children. It is unfair to them and their futures.

The fight for Rafael Ayau is the fight for hope.It stands for the future by providing the most important thing a nation could provide: education. The important thing we can do now is realize that every voice matters. Without this home, the cycle will rage on.

Guatemala will continue to have hundreds of thousands of displaced and vulnerable children, who without safe places to go, will grow up in deplorable conditions. Children will continue to grow up uneducated and without means to provide for themselves. Special needs kids will quite literally have nowhere to go.

What can we do? We can raise our voices. We can sign a petition to save Hogar Rafael Ayau.

PLEASE SIGN THIS TO SHOW THE GOVERNMENT THAT WE ARE LISTENING AND FIGHTING BACK. PLEASE SIGN THIS TO SHOW THE CHILDREN THAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR THEM AND THAT THEY ARE LOVED AND SUPPORTED. https://secure.avaaz.org/es/petition/Presidente_de...

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE PETITION:

http://www.friendsofthehogar.org/news-articles/ple...

FOR A TIMELINE AND UPDATED INFORMATION ON HOGAR RAFAEL AYAU, VISIT

http://www.friendsofthehogar.org/news-articles/tim...

Please share this. Please pray. Please tell your friends, neighbors, anyone who will listen. The world will not change with one voice, but as a collective whole.

Imagine a world where every child had the opportunity to have a family, a home, and an education. This is what happens to children who call Rafael Ayau home. We want this to continue.

A special thank you to Jimmy for sharing his heart and story.

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Sources:

Personal interview, Jimmy.

http://www.chapintv.com/actualidad/pgn-ordena-devo...

https://www.publinews.gt/gt/noticias/guatemala/201...

http://www.friendsofthehogar.org/news-articles/tim...

Republica.gt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEgC-vr8zfw&feature=share