Volunteers

Love is compassion in action - They need our love and our help now!

As a non-profit organization focused on meeting the health and basic needs of children in El Salvador, Hope International Services needs the support of volunteers from varied backgrounds. The most immediate needs, of course, are for volunteers in the medical fields:

Doctors
Physicians Assistants
Nurses
and many other specializations of medical practice.

However, as a growing organization, Hope International Services also needs volunteers to help with organizing fundraisers and providing adminstrative / clerical support. Without these volunteers we may not be able to provide the poor and needy in El Salvador with the medical attention, food, and clothing they need.

For more information on Volunteering with Hope International Services, contact us at any time.

Our Next Trip

Our next trip will be January 28, 2009. Please consider volunteering for our next mission on a Please contact us at any time. Hope International Services Include:

• Medical Professionals
• Food and Clothing Distribution to Underprivileged Families
• Nutritional Health Education Expertise

Please help where your heart leads you! Thanks
once and again for your faithful support! .

A Letter From A Supporter

During the summer of 2003 I had the opportunity to witness the important work of Hope International in El Salvador first hand. Having already worked as a social worker with orphans in Nicaragua, I was familiar with the unique challenges that street children experience. In fact, I was in El Salvador as a graduate student conducting fieldwork on the role of non-governmental organizations (like Hope) in the lives of street children. 

Throughout Latin America, children are pushed into a life in the street as a result of poverty, the strains of urbanization on the family structure, and sometimes physical abuse. This means that ‘street children' are left to their own devices to survive in a highly violent environment. A nearly universal strategy these children adopt is the use of drugs, such as glue and crack, to calm their sensations of hunger and loneliness. Although it is horrifying to see children, many only ten years old, experiencing the violence, drugs, and sexual abuse of the street as a lifestyle, it is also quite common. So much so in fact that these children have become a part of the common urban framework.

Organizations like Hope International have dedicated themselves to achieving what many people consider impossible, even unnatural. That is providing the children of the street the dignity and opportunity that more privileged children can rightly expect. Other organizations try to do this by transferring children off the street. But most street children are in fact reluctant to leave the environment that has become their home. For this reason Hope has taken the bold step of bringing their services to the street children in the street.

It was my experience that Hope, more than any other organization, is present in the daily lives of the street children in the dirty and dangerous urban environment where they dwell. Hope offers these forgotten children access to dignity, a safe haven, education, nutrition, health care, and relationships with adults who have the best interests of the children in mind.

The story of one individual I came to know illustrates this point well. Hope is strategically located within walking distance of the park where the most ‘hard-core' street children are. When I was in this park one day I met a street girl who was clearly traumatized. She had knife wounds to her throat and stomach, and had been left for dead only days earlier. Feeling desperate not to leave her on the street where she might die, I turned my energy to Hope. As it happened, Hope already knew this girl well.  Hope's strong connections to the street culture allowed me to offer my support to this girl through their organization. I provided a modest sum to help her, some $90 a month that I raised. With that amount Hope found her a safe place to live, bought her food to eat, and got her psychological counseling as well as a scholarship to a trade school.

My financial contribution proved to be the catalyst that allowed Hope to save this girl's life and give her a future. For this reason I continue to support her through Hope International, and plan to keep doing so. I know that through all the pain I witnessed, and the tragedy that persists, I have made a difference in someone's life that I cannot properly comprehend. And that was only possible because of the enduring and noble work of Hope.

There can be no doubt that children in El Salvador, and so many other places, suffer in ways that are unjustifiable. However, there can also be no doubt that the work of Hope International in El Salvador has given opportunity and promise to children who have been edged into the most horrific trenches of society. I would encourage anyone who would like to be significantly involved in these children's lives to support Hope International.

Michael Velarde

mvlastudies@yahoo.com

2165 Avenida de la Ribera
La Jolla, CA 92037

(949) 240-8213

Michael Velarde is a scholar who researched the problems of Salvadoran street children for his Masters degree in Latin American Studies from the University of California San Diego. He is currently looking for work in the nonprofit sector with a focus on immigrant's rights and human rights concerns.