Report on a visit to the Berriz Sisters in El Viejo, Saturday 7th March 2015

Amy Haworth Johns, Russell Hawe, David Pickles and Martin Mowforth paid a visit to the
Berriz Sisters in El Viejo.
Because the visit was on a Saturday, Casa
Esperanza and the El Viejo library (both
of which are managed by the Sisters)
were closed, but we got into the Youth
Centre after lunch. Very few kids were
there because on a Saturday they tend to
spend most of the day with their families
on the grounds that its the weekend and
they dont normally do so. But they
normally start turning up from around 3
pm. Sure enough, as we left, the kids
were lining up outside and started to go
in. There is a new co-coordinator at the
Youth Centre, Daisy who has taken over
from Ftima. Eliezer is still there as the
other co-coordinator.

Lunch with the Berriz Sisters in the Centro Catequstico.

After lunch with Sisters Abdontxu (from Spain), Ana Lourdes (Mexico), Paulina (Mexico)
and Ana Noemi (Guatemala), we talked with all of them about the El Viejo Library. We asked
if they still needed help with the library. Yes. They have reduced the personnel to one person
and have reduced the purchase of any materials, but they are managing to keep it open with
their other funds (now again including funds from Amigos de Holanda, but only small
amounts) and the SRF funds. But they stressed that
they are using just a part of our funds. We suggested
that if they write a short email to the SRF we will
consider sending a bit more (say, a thousand
dollars???) out to help them keep it going for this
year.

Sister Abdona Viar (Abdontxu)

For the long term, or at least 2016, we suggested

that they could send us a longer explanation and
application (plus budget) which we would be able to
submit to the EGCT (Educational and General
Charitable Trust) on their behalf. (Trustees of the
EGCT meet only once a year in either October or
November to consider applications.) We suggested
that we would need to receive it by the end of
August, so that we could translate it and also suggest
any changes necessary and then consider it at our
24th September meeting. We emphasised that we
could give no guarantees and would be new 'partners'
of the EGCT, so really have little idea of how they
might respond.

Left to right:
Sister Ana Lourdes
Martin Mowforth
David Pickles
Sister Abdontxu Viar
Sister Ana Noemi
Russell Hawe
Amy Haworth Johns
Sister Paulina

The Sisters are remarkably grateful to us, but we stressed that it is us who should be grateful
to them for the work that they do it was a kind of love-in between the Berriz Sisters and the
SRF. We recorded a relatively formal interview with them (and with Eliezer at the Youth
Centre) about the issue that has preoccupied them so much over the last two years, the
problem of the children left behind when one of their parents (normally the mother) emigrates
and leaves them with a grandparent or uncle or aunt or other. They see the effects in: lack of
identity, lack of belonging, gangs, drugs (very recent in this area), sexual abuse, physical
abuse, family conflicts, violence. Once transcribed and translated, we shall put the interviews
(in Spanish and English) onto the SRF website.