Wendell Brock - Wednesday, March 02, 2011
By Jayme Mendenhall

CREED was able to put together 360 school kits to send to Holy Cross Anglican School situated on a little island called Ambergris Caye just off the coast of Belize. There are about 400 children at the school and they come mostly from poverty stricken homes. The school kits were transported by a barge from the mainland, arriving just before Christmas.


During the school’s Christmas party, Santa came and distributed the school kits to the children.  They took pictures of each child receiving their school kit from Santa.  The children were excited to have the new supplies for school. Many of the children come from homes of such poverty that this was their only Christmas gift; and it was one that enabled them to continue with their schooling! The administration and teachers at Holy Cross are dedicated to educating these sweet children and helping them grow and develop. The children themselves are cute and have happy dispositions; they are eager to learn.


Two of the biggest hurdles that had to be overcome to make this delivery a success were funding and shipping. Funding was needed initially to get the school kits put together and then again to have them sent. Shipping is normally a very expensive part of the process, but CREED was able to coordinate efforts with another non-profit that helped with the shipping. While this helped the expenses greatly, it then meant working on someone else’s time table; then the challenge of getting the kits through customs etc. Each step seems to have its own particular set of obstacles to rise above.  We are grateful to those who helped make this delivery such a success! 


Ralph Hardy was recently in charge of delivering the school kits that went to three other schools in Belize.  45 children received school kits at the Iguana Creek School in the village of Celena; 65 children at the village school in San Marcos; and 30 children at the Cayo Deaf Institute in the Central Farm area. The students were also given a pair of flip flops to wear. Several of the teachers decided to keep back some of the notebooks for future use so they wouldn't get used up so quickly. The children were happy to receive the school kits and flip flops as these were much needed items for them. Thanks to all of you for your support of the children of Belize!


On a side note, the school kits that have been sent to Haiti are awaiting delivery. It took a long time to ship them and get them through customs due to the political unrest in that country. We are looking forward to having them delivered by March.Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Wendell Brock - Tuesday, November 02, 2010
By Jayme Mendenhall

The Word at Work non-profit in Belize is putting together a small scale sewing business. This non profit is teaching ladies how to sew and then providing the funds for them to purchase a sewing machine on credit, to help get their micro business established.  They are also looking for some investment dollars that they can lend to the ladies to help purchase the machines.  CREED is working to establish a fund that would provide the money for their growing micro-business lending project in Belize.

Pedro Perez, a Business Development Manager, at Atlantic Bank, Ltd. a local bank in Belize, is leading this project.  “My initial focus is serving those who are currently ‘unbankable minitrepreneurs’ within the $400.00 range. It is my hope that with training, monitoring and support these could graduate into micro, and small projects.  My main focus is to increase their capacity and skills to do business generally.  We also saw that these trained persons needed the financial and business skills to be fully successful, hence our initial interest in Micro Enterprise development.”

The idea is new for Belize and they are open to play it by ear and adopt the best practices.  The target market is single mothers and young women and men who are unable to continue their formal education. Pedro and his wife have been partnering with The Word at Work for sometime and they currently manage one of the sewing programs in Belize. There are three in Belize City, one in Corozal, and the Word at Work is hoping to start another at Holy Cross in San Pedro.  So far they have trained many singles and mothers and sold them sewing machines to start a new life. Their immediate goal for this sewing project is: 20 single mothers at Centro, 25 at House of Refuge, and 8 in Corozal.
  
CREED is initially creating a $5,000.00 revolving fund for the initial pilot project.  They have developed a complete framework for this program and they are working on developing the training material both in Spanish and English to implement with 3 of their local partners: Centro Vision Misionero, House of Refuge and Living Hopes Ministry Preparatory School. 

The loans to help start the micro businesses are a maximum of Bze$ 400.00, but they have the flexibility of going above and below this amount.  The total charges for the loan, including interest, registration and support and monitoring fees, are $100.00. The recipients are then given 5 months to pay with a grace of one month (six months). This makes the $25.00 weekly payments affordable.

There are some requirements the recipients must meet; they must take the training, develop a business plan, start saving, accept the monitoring and coaching and pay back on time.  There is a committee that evaluates the business plans and decisions are based on:

Character
Viability and need of project
Capacity to pay back
 How it is going to impact the member and their family
 References from the Pastor and others in the church they attend

We invite you to participate in this project as we press forward to improve the lives of families, simply click Here, then click on the "Just Give Button"  
Thank you very much for your support.