Oct 2011:
Here are two testimonies from our Jam Making Project:
Marta Cheuque:"My dream is that eventually we could be able to send this at the market or the grocery store. Everyone has cooperated so this Project can work and we can see how fruitful it has been. I need money to pay for my kid's education, for the bus fee, some books, etc. We need money for all that".
Maria Catripai: "The Fruit Project has meant a lot to us, God wanted this to be this way. With the project we are able to buy food for our family. Before the project I tried to make jam in my house, but it wouldn´t work, plus I never had enough jars and sugar. We have used the money to upgrade our house and pay for our living expenses.
June 2011:
The Mingako projects are a way for the community to band together and help each other succeed. One of the income generating activities they are working on is bee keeping. The project took a little time to get started and had a setback with some initial hives that were not suitable, but has now been in full flow since August. The first batch of honey was harvest in March and April. They collected 70kg from 10 hives. The community is very excited for what they are learning and what could be possible through the honey sales.
This project has benefitted from ongoing training from Margarita Cuevas, who has been able to visit and support the project nearly every week since it began. The project sales are divided with 10% going as tithe to the church, 40% being reinvested in the project and 50% being divided among the workers.
February 2011:
From an administrator's point of view, containers can be a headache. Logistics, stacks of paperwork, a myriad of phone calls and foreign customs agencies create a web of frustration. And it's not uncommon for a container to arrive in country and have to sit in the shipping yard for months!
However, we know our partners greatly appreciate our efforts and consider the donated material priceless. In the end, that's what keeps us going. In June, a container sent to Chile was finally freed from its shipping yard captivity. It was full of computers, toys and med packs.
Sixty percent of the container items went to Mery Sepulveda in the south of Chile. She has spent the last several months distributing the items to various churches, including the Collin Alto Church of the Mapuche Indians. They also received sewing machines that are part of the Mingako projects. We know everything we sent will go to good use, so we're happy to send it!
