For the last six months my American friend Jenny and I have been working on a fundraising project. Over many rounds of coffee and playdates we began to organize a small grassroots group called Bridging the Gap. The goal of Bridging the Gap is to raise funds and seek out donations in kind for the children and communitites of the Darien Gap.
If the Darien Gap is new to you Wikipedia has a quick overview- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_gap
Needless to say this is, perhaps, Panama's poorest region. Schools are without textbooks, medical clinics are without the most basic of supplies (think antibiotic creams and Tylenol) and the people of the Darien (a mix of Indigenous, Afro-Carribean and Columbian refugees) have struggled for years to develop self sustaining work that would support their families. Add into the mix a reluctance on the part of the Panamanian government to acknowledge there's a problem and the constant threat of Columbian drug terrorists and the it quickly becomes obvious that anything one can do to help would be much appreciated.
So Jenny and I organized a series of events with our network of women here in Panama. The response has been incredible. We have raised enough money to purchase textbooks for an entire school (one of the few in the region, children travel upwards of 2 hours to get there) and when we asked for donations in-kind of school art supplies we were absolutely overwhelmed by the load of paper, paint, glitter, play-doh and other fun stuff that arrived.
Our partners in all of this have been the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, they have been helping us to find where the best use of these resources will be. And tomorrow Jenny and I will accompany a UN Team to the Darien communities that we've been working to support.
I can't wait to meet the kids. I can't wait to give them the textbooks and supplies. We have been told that they have been working without textbooks, without pencils and without notebooks. We've also been told that the school has never had a major shipment of any of the above and would never have expected to receive the fun stuff, like crayons and glitter.
I'll report back after our trip. With photos. And I hope a renewed committment to Bridging the Gap.
4 comments:
I'm obviously a tad biased, but I have to give huge props to Mara for what she's managed to accomplish with Bridging the Gap. She's been so successful in motivating people behind this, that even our Panamanian security guard (who makes virtually nothing by developed world standards) has got some friends together to donate supplies to the school. The impact this will have on the lives of the students and teachers is really quite incredible. And Zella is even trying to sell her art work to raise money as well. Can you tell I'm a bit proud of my wife?
Wow!!! I'm not surprised at all to learn that you guys will be doing this, good luck! hope lots of people help you collect things and I guarantee those kids and their parents we'll be extremely grateful to you and this you are doing will bring many blessings to the James family, I'm proud to be able to say I got to spent a lot of quality time with such great human beings :)
Ale, thanks!! Big hug to you!
M
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