An update from Street Kids Direct
This week Hurricane Eta was downgraded to tropical storm Eta and pounded Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala with devastating force, with hundreds dead and homeless, destroying roads and bridges and, in one place, buried a whole village leaving 150 dead in Guatemala.
Steve Poulson, volunteer for Street Kids Direct, managed to drive to Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala, just before the storm hit and has been unable to return home due to the damage the storm has made to the roads, with many under severe meters of water or backed by huge landslides. In one city, where the charity has helped initiate a mentoring programme with high-risk children, the main river in the city rose by 15m.
In Guatemala there are fears that no one will now be found alive in a village that was buried under a huge mudslide, according to Guatemala´s President Alejandro Giammattei. The country has already suffered greatly from the Coronavirus pandemic and now this is another blow to the devastated economy, that will only lead to greater hardship and poverty.
During this year we have been greatly encouraged by the dedicated work of Alex Denton. Alex took a career break from EDF energy and offered his services to the charity to help coordinate a new measurement tool the charity will be using to help evaluate the impact of its work with high-risk children and youth. What Alex did not plan on was the Covid pandemic, that changed his work quite dramatically.
Alex will return to the UK in January, after working with the Radio Christmas project in Guatemala. The popular festive radio station will go live on the 1st December and we hope you will join him and the Street Kids Direct team and many hundreds of volunteers from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Honduras and Guatemala as we try and unite the world at a time of a global pandemic.
Thanks to a Street Kids Direct donor another child at risk has been helped with their sight. Six-year-old Melisa was born with a genetic eye condition that meant she had never seen properly in her life.
This was the moment we delivered her glasses and a short video will be released during Radio Christmas of her initial reaction to seeing properly for the first time.
Every day during the 24 days of Radio Christmas we will be releasing another video to demonstrate the impact your donations make in Central America. Do subscribe to our YouTube channel and do tune into Radio Christmas, which goes live from 6:00am on the 1st December.
UNITING THE WORLD THIS CHRISTMAS
This year's Radio Christmas will seek to raise funds for the charity´s work, but also with a focus on trying to unite the world! The station began in a garden shed in 2008 and has grown to a worldwide online station that now broadcasts all year on the web, via Apple TV, Amazon Alexa and also on a mobile app.
We would like to involve as many people from as many countries as possible this year and so please do help promote the station with family and friends around the world.
More about this year's appeal and programming coming soon.
