The Jaden Foundation blog

Any of you who have supported the Jaden Foundation (my little charity) over the last few years, please check out the Jaden Foundation blog on what's been happening with it.

Just to get you up to date though...here's the posting that I added to it today:

Tumul k'in sponsorship

As nowadays the children of Belize are getting their schoolbooks for free (paid for by the government of Belize), we decided to spend the bulk of this year's Jaden Foundation money on supporting the sponsorship program of the local Private school, the Belize Christian Academy & on supporting the Tumul k'in Center of Learning in Punta Gorda.

Tumul k'in is a Mayan school (not only for Mayan children, though most are) and it is a project that both Karen and I visited a few years ago and fell in love with. I wrote about Tumul k'in in the following blog postings: http://simonesbelizeblog.blogspot.com/search?q=tumul+k%27in

Anyway, this year we have donated $3000 BZ to the school so they can finish building their 'multi-purpose' building. It will be a place where the children can eat their lunch, where the graduations will be held, where community meetings will be held as well as parties and music performances (my kind of place!)

At the last graduation most parents had to stand outside as they didn't have a building large enough to house everyone, so they are very happy with the Jaden Foundation donation.

The managing director of the school wrote me this lovely note today:

Hi Simone,
Just letting you know that we have received the transfer of funds for the construction of the community cultural center (aka kitchen). We will start the work in a week so so since we have to wait for a change in the moon to cut the bamboo to use for the walling. I will keep you informed on the advances of the project.

Isn't that great? They have to wait for the moon to start building. That's the kind of 'being at one with nature' that we as a society have lost. Part of the school's mission is to teach the Mayan kids to respect their Mayan heritage and to take pride in the ancient knowledge and traditions. They use ancient farming practices next to modern day ones, teach the kids about the medicinal properties of the jungle herbs, etc.

And the kids, staff and parents all work together on building the school & many of the buildings are build in the traditional Mayan way, as you can see in the following pictures. This is the start of the building that they will be finishing and furnishing with our donation:




So thank you again to all our sponsors. We hope that you agree with how we are spending the Jaden Foundation money this year. Personally we are delighted that apart from the children that we have sponsored over the years there now also is something tangible that has been build with the sponsorship money. Something that in years from now will still be there and enjoyed by many people.

Biking across Belize

My sincere apologies for my blogging slackness lately, but the holidays, moving house, etc. have just been too distracting. In the meantime we’ve moved in to our new house, even though only half of it has been built. So I still feel like we’re camping a bit.

Our stuff is spread out all over the place; the house in Belmopan, the Dome and now our Riverside Cottage (the new house). There is building work going on all around us & we have no telephone, Internet or even a fridge yet.

Still, soon we’ll be over this chaotic phase. And already it’s so much better to be back on the Jungle Dome grounds, that in it self already feels calmer.

Now, I don’t know if you guys have been following Andy or Karen’s blogs recently, but in case you haven’t, Karen is going to do this crazy bike race around Belize at the end of January, called the ‘Temple to Temple’ tour, for which she has to bike 750 km. in 7 days!!!!

So Karen is out training a lot these days, but even for her standards, this will be a major challenge & achievement (we assume she’ll manage to do it)

Now obviously, this is a great thing for people to sponsor. And Karen has kindly offered to donate all the proceeds to the Jaden Foundation. Hopefully all the children that we got into the private school (BCA) this year will be able to continue their education there next year. We also buy schoolbooks for children in the public schools, but the private school is by far our biggest expense (well worth it though). This year we’ve sponsored about 25 public primary school children, 2 high school kids and 7 children to go to the private school. On top of this we pay for medical emergencies, school transport and occasionally support other local charities.

If you are interested in sponsoring Karen contact me and/or Karen and we'll let you know how to go about it(The donations can also be made tax deductible)

Adios my friends, I hope 2007 has been treating you well so far!