Maica's IGP

So sorry this took me a few days to get this up. These darn holidays get crazy busy for us! All that food to eat and family to hang out with. :)

Anyhow - these are the photos I got from Children International about the results of the Income Generating Project that I set up for Maica's family.

Here is Maica with the supplies they bought:



Maica's mother proposed to set herself up in business as a street vendor of food. This is a very, very common job amongst the parents of CI's sponsor kids in the Philippines. Maica's mother had previous experience as a street vendor but had been out of work for a year due to illness.



The expenses associated with Maica's mother Carmencita's illness had eaten up their available money and left her with no way to re-start her business once she was well again.



The family was very happy to hear that help was on the way because in addition to the loss of income from Carmencita's lack of work, Maica's father Alexander was on the verge of losing his job as well. He worked in a factory where they made cabinets but unfortunately the factory was closing. Maica's family was facing a potential disaster if both parents are out of work. It only takes one such misfortune to push a family like Maica's over the edge. Even one month without work could be the difference between a family barely getting by and suddenly becoming homeless(like my other sponsor child Jenny's family.) I'm so happy that I asked CI to look into the IGP's for my sponsor kids! Otherwise, I might not have known about Maica's situation until it was too late.



Carmencita bought lots of food and cooking supplies as well as large bag of charcoal and an umbrella for shade while she works on the street. I was so glad to see that they had bought that umbrella! It makes me happy to think that Carmencita will have a shady place to sit while she works. I don't know what dish Carmencita cooks and sells - but don't those ingredients look good?



Maica wrote me a very sweet letter of thanks. And I loved getting these photos because she looks so proud and happy. The field worker for CI also wrote to me to tell me that Maica's family went to church and had a special mass of thanksgiving read for me. That really touched my heart because even though I am not a religious person I know that my kids in the Philippines definitely are. It made me cry to think that they were including me in their prayers because I know how much that means to them.

I want to thank everyone who has bought yarn or books from me. Your help has been so great! I am pretty sure that the next IGP I am setting up will be for Jhonny's family in Ecuador. I need $800 - $900 for that project and I'm nearly there! I'll be updating my sale with some more yarn and books soon so hopefully I can get the next project going before Christmas time. Yay!!