Hola Chicos!
Have you heard of the saying “practice what you preach?” or as I like to call it “practice what you teach?” Well, in my high school Spanish 3H class, I am currently teaching about volunteering. As part of my unit I am having all of my students go out into the world and use their skills and knowledge to make the world a better place. And to stay true to my motto, I asked my administration (Mr. Hanlon, Mr. Dippipo, and Mr. Case) if they would let me use my personal days to go out and volunteer as well. Good news, they said yes!! (Have I told you I have the best job ever?) And here I am now, spending a week volunteering at El Centro San Juan Diego in El Paso, Texas.
El Centro San Juan Diego is a refugee center that is run by the Annunciation House and takes in families after they are released from ICE. What normally happens is that these families have some kind of extreme scenario that causes them to flee their native country. Some of the stories that I have heard are super gruesome and terrible and I don’t really want to write them out for my younger readers… but families are fleeing for all kinds of reasons. And I cannot fathom what I would do if I were in their position. Most of these families are from El Salvador, Brazil, Guatemala, and Honduras and they travel up through Mexico and turn themselves in at the USA/Mexico border. We call this seeking asylum.
From there, the families are brought to ICE and they are put in holding cells. The holding cells are supposed to hold around 4 people, but from what I have heard from the refugees, normally the cells have at least 15 people in each one. The families have to sleep on the floor with just a tinfoil blanket. They are given a small burrito for meals and they say it is so cold in the cell they call it the “ice box”. It is truly a miserable experience and one that I cannot imagine going through, especially with children. After a few days, ICE processes their paperwork and some of these families get released onto the street to fend for themselves. They have not properly eaten, have not bathed in days or even weeks, many are enfermos from staying in these horrible conditions, and do not speak English. On their own, I have no idea how these fellow global citizens would find their family members and get to where they are supposed to go…But thankfully, the Annunciation House is here to help.
The Annunciation House has made it their mission to provide these families with food, water, clean clothes, a shower, and language help and has set up centers around the area to help. One of these centers is called El Centro San Juan Diego and this is where I will be volunteering for the next week.
Tomorrow I will tell you all about what I have been doing at the center and the experiences I have had so far. Thank you for following along with me. And to my high school Spanish 3H class, thank you for doing your part to help make the world a better, kinder, cleaner place. You all have wonderful talents and skills (Spanish being one of them) and I am so glad you get to use them to help others. Keep up the good work and I will check in soon!
Senora Traub
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