NPHI_Annual_Report_2012

1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

Since 1954, the NPH mission addresses the needs of children through a holistic approach that features a permanent home, quality education, healthcare and a spiritual foundation to prepare them for lives as productive members of their respective societies.

Program Highlights

Childcare: Like any parent, we prepare our children to grow into caring, respectful, responsible

Education: We believe education is the key to a better life. That’s why NPH provides an extensive range of educational opportunities.

and productive adults.

Healthcare: We provide our children with access to vital healthcare services to ensure each child receives the best physical and emotional care possible.

Spiritual Formation: Each child is educated in the Christian faith and principles as a foundation for their moral development.

Community Engagement: Each NPH home practices outreach through social service programs, healthcare and in-kind donations.

Environment: Our homes replicate a family environment, and we diligently strive to create a family atmosphere.

Leadership: The goal of raising our children to become leaders in their own society is important for the development of the child and their community.

2012 highlights

3,656: Total children cared for living in our homes.

1,555: Children from low-income households that attend NPH schools

298: New arrivals in our homes.

114,127: Children and adults who received humanitarian

278: Children living with family who receive academic scholarships

aid (medical, education and emergency relief) 503: Children living with HIV that receive antiretrovirals

334: NPH youths that earned a vocational certification

77: NPH child surgeries

125: Full-time volunteers from other countries

249: Honduras Holy Family Surgery Center surgeries

1,250: NPH staff and youths that received childcare and leadership training

27: NPH university graduates

248: NPH youths who completed a year of service

73: NPH high school graduates

674: Holy Sacraments (First Communion, Baptism, Confirmation)

Haiti / Opened: 1987 Children living in home: 850, Total child population: 2,041 Dominican Republic / Opened: 2003 Children living in home: 222, Total child population: 303

Mexico / Opened: 1954 Children living in home: 653 Total child population: 730

Guatemala / Opened: 1996 Children living in home: 335, Total child population: 768 El Salvador / Opened: 1999 Children living in home: 322, Total child population: 331 Honduras / Opened: 1985 Children living in home: 469, Total child population: 607 Nicaragua / Opened: 1994 Children living in home: 253, Total child population: 451

Peru / Opened: 2004

Children living in home: 96

Bolivia / Opened: 2005

Children living in home: 101

Nuestros Pequeùos Hermanos™ International 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 1

2 NPHI 2012 Annual Report

Fr. Phil Cleary at NPH Mexico, Miacatlรกn.

Dear NPH Family, A philosopher once wrote: “In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

If that is so, then I am one of the wealthiest men in the world. I am surrounded by countless everyday blessings… the smiles, laughter, hugs, and contagious joy of the 3,300 children who call Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos their family and home.

The most common remark heard from people who visit one of our nine homes, is that “It’s not what I expected”.

Far from the stereotypes of gray, non-descript buildings filled with non-responsive automatons, when you walk into an NPH home, you find yourself rather in the midst of what I like to call “organized pandemonium”. You find an oasis filled with excited and excitable children, who though having suffered some of the most horrid experiences imaginable – the deaths of those most dear to them, abandonment, abuse or even slavery – have overcome all of that, have found a family and home where they are loved, and because of that are turning into basically some of the most beautiful human beings imaginable.

The most important thing that I do every day when I am home in Mexico (a variation of which routine I follow in every home I visit) is simply standing outside of the dining room as the kids flow in for a meal and offering and receiving a hug from all who are looking for a bit of affection. Our children know that they are lovable and loved.

Every day that is a blessing for them as well as for all of us who have the joy of working directly with them.

I hope that this annual report will show all of our supporters that we are doing our best to make the most of every one of your generous gifts, for the good of some of God’s most special children. If you can imagine yourself standing with me outside of the dining room, offering and receiving a hug to hundreds and hundreds of children, I am sure that you will feel as blessed as I do. May that image be our way of thanking you for all the ways that YOU bless the lives of the children of NPH. God bless you all for your support!

Sincerely, Father Phil Cleary President, NPH International 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 3

executive director More Children Continue to Need Our Care Even with challenging economic conditions in our fundraising countries, the numbers of children needing our help increased.

While we had to change our focus in 2012 from growth and expansion to learning how to provide the same level high level Miguel Venegas at NPH Mexico. of care to our children but with significantly less resources, we continued to accept those children needing our help. We have tried to live frugally, living with what we had, while at the same time searching for ways to increase our resources in the coming years.

As we constantly re-examine how we accomplish our mission, we always come back to Father Wasson’s four proven principles of care for orphaned and abandoned children – unconditional love, sharing, work, and responsibility. Time has shown that, regardless of the challenges, Father Wasson developed a timeless framework for the care of at-risk children. And we continue today to be committed to spreading his vision because of our belief that it is the very best. We worked hard on expanding and improving the care we offer to the children of all of our homes.

Sharing, which taught us generosity in response to the Haiti earthquake Taking a lesson from the children themselves, we shared people, money, and commitment among all of our homes so that all could

continue their mission. There were challenges. In response to the horrors of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, our program in Haiti instantly grew to nearly four times its size in budget and program expansion throughout the community. We had no choice but to share what we had in order to care for those who had nothing. Now we are facing a double challenge of supporting programs that should not end with resources that declined near year-end.

Work, learning to give-back daily Everyone in the NPH family contributed as they could to maintain our high level of care when resources declined. The children pitched-in, volunteers extended their commitments daily and for longer times of service, our employees rose to the challenge by producing more with less, and our National Directors and their country organizations embraced the challenge of providing compassionate care with fewer caregivers and services.

Eating tortillas at NPH Mexico.

Our Leadership Development program continued to provide guidance to large groups of future pequeño leaders. Our National Directors continued their quest for excellence in education and medicine as well as constant improvement in childcare. Our spiritual formation programs continue to support the children, and those graduating from vocational training and those graduating from universities continue to increase and find respectable positions in their communities.

Sources of Funds 2012 $

37,622,808

2012 Child Population: 5,428 451

Nicaragua

23% Friends USA

768

Guatemala

2,041

331

Haiti

El Salvador

303 Dominican

58% OLBS Europe

Republic

607

Honduras

730

Mexico

Children living in our homes during 2012: 3,656 Children living in our homes as of Dec. 31, 2012: 3,342

4 NPHI 2012 Annual Report

96 Peru 101 Bolivia

2% Friends Canada 1% OLBS Virginia

12% Local income

4% Reserves

Children at Rancho Santa Fe, NPH Honduras

Responsibility, Father Wasson’s legacy of accountability Following Father Wasson’s advice to his children, all of NPH and its fundraising supporters refused to say “pobre de mi” and instead seized the responsibility to not only care for those we had, but continued to bring-in those whose misfortune resulted in being orphaned or abandoned and in danger of survival. From the challenges of rapid expansion in Haiti to the governmental impediments placed in the way of our efforts to reach out to the children in many of our countries because of their outmoded philosophy of how to serve at-risk children, we accepted our responsibility and acted according to our first priority - the best interests of the children in our care. We teach our children to accept responsibility for themselves - and the NPH Family did the same with our responsibility to the children.

The Challenge of 2013 - the greatest we have faced As the world still suffers from the financial crisis and consequent austerity programs in Europe and the United States, we look increasingly to those principles of Father Wasson for support. They apply to the entire NPH Family. Our National Directors will need to cope with smaller budgets at a time when they feel they should be increasing their funding in their quest for excellence. Our donors are being asked to do more when they, too, are struggling. And our caregivers will need to do more with less people and less support services.

Love, and the security it embraces Though all of us in the NPH family - caregivers, technical and administrative people, fundraisers, donors and padrinos - love our children, we realize that we receive so much more from them than we give. These are our everyday blessings that follow us throughout the NPH world. After leaving the NPH home, we hear back from so many of our children, who repeat to each other, “Once you are one of Father Wasson’s Pequeños, you are always a Pequeño, always with Pequeño brothers and sisters.”

Miguel Venegas Executive Director, NPH International

But we will share what we have, work together, accept our responsibility, and above all embrace the everyday blessings bestowed upon us all by the love of our children.

Uses of Funds 17.6%

14.9% *

General & Admin

11.8%

Construction in progress and fixed assets

House Services

5.6%

Transportation 3.3%

8.2%

17.2% Medical

Increase in holdings of designated contributions

Food

20%

Education

1.4% Clothing

*

House Services includes: maintenance, transportation, housing, public assistance, farm and livestock, services and utilities.

1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 5

family services

“A child is good because of someone,” Fr. William Wasson

The year 2012 brought many joys shared with the children, staff and volunteers at the NPH homes, and increased challenges because of the tightening of financial resources.

The Family Services Team held a strategic planning and reorganization meeting to bring the many tasks we have into focus. Rather than to continue to work by region we now work by expertise. The areas we decided to focus on include: leadership training and development for NPH youth, staff Reinhart Koehler at NPH Honduras. and directors; childcare training of staff, year of service and volunteers; training in Crisis Prevention and Intervention (CPI); spiritual formation and religious education; educational improvement programs; monitoring of the homes through our bi-annual/audit-review sheet and child welfare interviews.

Leadership Development Donna Egge did an outstanding job in moving forward our Leadership and Youth Development programs. With the support of a generous donor, who places a high value on leadership development, we were able to continue leadership training and development, always with the goal of keeping Fr. Wasson’s vision at the heart of our work: “It is my wish that my older boys and girls will always care for their younger brothers and sisters.”

At the third International Leadership Conference, held in January in Guatemala, over 40 participants representing eight of our nine countries came together focusing on Fr. Wasson’s philosophy, foundational aspects of leadership and personal development.

We were fortunate to count again on Dr. Michael Maccoby’s participation to bring Fr. Wasson’s philosophy alive.

This past November we took Leadership Formation and Development to another level by bringing together a group of adult Pequeños/as who already practice leadership in a variety of positions at the different NPH homes. During this small, more individualized workshop, we were able to prioritize on key topics such as case studies, conflict resolution, teamwork, communication and evaluating staff.

We added a new pilot program to NPH: mentoring. This component will enable the current staff (who are hermanos/as mayores that

6 NPHI 2012 Annual Report

participated in this workshop) to connect, set goals and receive support from an NPH International staff member on a regular basis.

We are excited about this pilot project and will be monitoring and evaluating this experience over the next six months.

Family Services Team with Leadership Institute.

We observed with great joy and pride the first group of Pequeños/ as graduating from the Seattle International Leadership Institute, led by Kara King with support from Donna Egge. All participants affirmed how they had grown personally, learned English to the degree of fluency, and felt a stronger than ever identity as a Pequeño/a. All continue now with their development in higher studies. A new group of four young adult Pequeño/as has replaced them to receive the same intensive personal and leadership development and language training at the Institute.

Faith Formation In November, the Family Services Team facilitated the first NPH International Spiritual Formation Workshop. We invited religion department teams from our Central American homes; Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala, as well as from our flagship home, Mexico, and began to bring this dream to fruition.

We were energized and motivated by these dedicated catechists, priests and other participants. Together we shared materials, best practices, and general strategies on how to structure and better the work in our religion departments. On the final day, their hard work concluded with a presentation of a mission statement and curriculum guide/plan that will be used as an outline in all of our NPH Homes. The mission states: We are a religion department that works in conjunction with the other departments of the NPH family which seeks to be light and hope for each of our Pequeños and Pequeñas, while providing a comprehensive education in the faith. We are a department that extracts the principles of our father and founder, Father William Wasson, and promotes an encounter of falling in love with God and following Christ. We strive to help raise Catholic Christians to be good members of our family and good citizens of their countries.

Crisis Prevention and Intervention In November 2011 we arranged training of 17 NPH staff from various homes to be certified as Crisis Prevention and Intervention trainers. With the help of these trainers and under the leadership of Markus Streit, close to 500 staff, volunteers and NPH youth in their year of service have received CPI training. The training has allowed us not only to work with childcare staff on how to handle a crisis with a child but to focus on successful child rearing practices and techniques that prevent a crisis in the first place.

Educational Improvement Program Glenn Jones had done a fabulous job in starting an educational improvement program. Through his contacts, he was able to bring in volunteer specialist expertise with local knowledge to work in teacher training in all homes except Peru and Bolivia (both homes use schools outside of the home). Especially the teachers at our Father Wasson’s Angels of Light School were very excited about the training. As a second step Glenn then brought together teachers from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala for training workshops and to exchange professional experience.

All educational processes take time. While first results are encouraging we now need to find ways to continue the program under the current financial restrictions.

Dr. Michael Maccoby with a student from Haiti.

Child Welfare Interviews Alfonso Leon, together with former volunteer Nicole Ambrosio, conducted extensive “Child Welfare” interviews at our homes in Central America. The interviews were complemented with additional interviews done by our FS Team during their on-site visits. The interview focuses on a variety of elements in the children’s lives at NPH to determine if the children overall are happy, feel secure and have a sense of belonging. The results were: 84% felt secure, 11% felt less secure and 5% felt insecure.

he is confident that enough seeds have been planted to foster the desire in our teachers to continue with renewed intensity their professional development.

While the resources shrink the amount of work increases. This report only highlights the most important facets of our work. A lot of time is spent on so many details. Procuring good teaching materials, arranging meetings, assisting in fundraising, advising staff and listening: to the children, young adults, volunteers, staff, directors, Godparents, benefactors, and the fundraisers. All have concerns, ideas, suggestions – and all are important.

A special thank you to Alfonso, Glenn, Donna, Kara and Markus for another year of dedication and hard work. I am always amazed how much we can accomplish with such a small team. A thank you to the NPH staff and directors at the various homes because only with their help and cooperation can we achieve our goals. I also thank Cheryl Sesnon, Nicole Ambrosio and Dr. Michael Maccoby for their special support of our work.

We are very grateful to the fundraisers who provide through their work for our program and are thankful to all the benefactors and donors who have contributed to the Family Services work and to NPH. Now more than ever, your gift is needed to provide children with a family in which they feel loved and secure, where they can develop a sense of belonging and grow up as children should be able. Where they can live in an atmosphere that helps them gain trust and faith, and grow in hope of a future in which they can fulfill their dreams.

A big thank you to the Pequeños and Pequeñas, the children, youth and young adults who remain at the heart of our work who give us so much joy and happiness and make us so proud in all of their accomplishments.

Reinhart Koehler Director of Family Services, NPH International

Outlook As a result of the NPH-wide funding shortage, the FS Team accepted a 30% cut in funding for 2013. One of the consequences was a downsizing our team. Alfonso Leon returned to work directly for Haiti after five years of service with the FS Team. We thank Alfonso for his work and contributions to the team and the children of NPH. We also could not extend Glenn Jones’ contract, though 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 7

medical services The seeds planted for the last three years by structuring the NPH healthcare system, training doctors and nurses, developing tools and policies, has been crucial in providing the quality services that all the NPH home clinics provide.

Together with local staff, the NPHI Medical Services team strives to provide the best quality services measurable by international standards.

The results are obvious. We don’t have emergency outbreaks, there are less ill Dr. Pilar Silverman at NPH Mexico. children and large scale improvements have been made in public health measures (water and sanitation, health education and hygiene).

Unfortunately we did lose two children, though the gravity of their condition was just too severe no matter how hard we tried.

We have improved the care for children with chronic conditions such as epilepsy, cerebral paralysis, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and sickle cell anemia by monitoring more frequently their health status and following evidence based protocols for treatment. Early detection has been one of the key interventions to saving lives.

Keeping the children healthy is our priority. A sick child who doesn’t feel well is not able to learn, socialize or advance developmentally - all basic pillars to develop a healthy childhood.

In accordance with our Medical Services priorities, we ensure that all children have a medical checkup every year and that we followup on any care or test needed. We make sure all the children are well vaccinated according to their age, local country vaccine schedule and the World Health Organization recommendations.

Our policies require that children have an adequate weight and height according to their age and have correct growth and development as well as adequate nutrition. Children with chronic conditions always receive evidence based treatment, safe and cost effective medicines for their condition as well as therapies (physical, occupational, art, speech, psychological) as part of the integral care we provide. We search for treatment opportunities abroad when are not available in-country.

Our goal is that children are healthy and become productive adults in their communities and become an active part of the country’s development, as well as being ambassadors of Father Wasson’s vision. New children that enter NPH are arriving with multiple health issues as a result of extreme poverty, abuse or recklessness of care, where they previously lived. An estimate of 44% of people live under poverty conditions in Latin America , equaling around 200 million people. (60% of children 0-12 years live in poverty, 50% of adolescents 13-19 years old live in the same conditions).

I would like to mention several great improvements and success stories of 2012. Sanitation and quality of water have been main projects at our homes in Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, Dominican Republic and Haiti. In some of the homes, it was a difficult and complicated project to improve the quality of water, making it safe for human consumption, nevertheless we had outstanding support from experts.

The catch-up immunization campaign started mid 2011 and is about to finish with the fourth round of vaccinations in Haiti, which was the most challenging country.

Most of the children were not adequately vaccinated due to the fact the country didn’t have enough resources to have a stable, regular

8 NPHI 2012 Annual Report

Vaccination catch-up at NPH Haiti.

Child in Peru receives a wellness check-up.

500: Chronic conditions 67: HIV (children living in the homes) 298: New child medical exam 2,733: Well child visits 5,112: Vaccine doses 67: Hospitalized (mostly for surgeries)

availability of vaccines. To have at least 75%-80% of the children well vaccinated is paramount to safety and to protect the rest of the children in the community not yet vaccinated. This was our objective.

Preventing budget cuts on food and improving the intake of nutrients from our menus is underway. We received generous donations of canned fish in several countries as well as other basic food for daily diet intake.

We are working hard to make sure all menus have the adequate and Enjoying watermelon at NPH Honduras. necessary basic nutrients to growth and develop. We also have special nutritional programs in the homes for children at-risk or with malnutrition, giving them supplementary food and vitamins in order to have them at an adequate weight. Anemia for lack of iron, parasites, frequent infections along with poor or inadequate intake is the most common nutritional problem.

Another intervention which made us very happy was to receive a donation of mosquito nets for our FWAL home in Haiti. Since then we have not had any new cases of malaria, dengue or filarial among our children.

1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

77: Surgeries 11,230: Physician consults 25,196: Nurse consults 4,124: Therapies (Physical, Occupational, Psychological) 3,203: Dental consults

Currently we have 79 children living with HIV/AIDS spread in all the NPH homes and we want to make sure they receive appropriate care based on additional nutrition, access to antiretrovirals, emotional support and health education.

Thanks to long-term godparents and their commitment and enthusiasm for NPH, Honduras received a high-tech auto refractor to check the vision of our children. Several local staff were trained and prescription glasses are made at no cost in Florida thanks to the generosity of an ophthalmologist and optometrist.

The forecast for 2013 includes an exciting project, which was financed by a grant, for implementing electronic medical records in all the clinics. The implementation will begin in March 2013 in Mexico.

NPH continues to provide unprecedented healthcare for orphaned, abandoned and at-risk children. No other organization working with this population administers such extraordinary care as NPH does and especially for many special needs and chronically ill children. We are their parents, their caregivers and their family.

Sincerely, Dr. Pilar Silverman Executive Director of Medical Services

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 9

mexico

Dear Friends, Looking back on 2012, we are proud of what we have been able to accomplish and look forward to even greater achievements in 2013. We face a budget cut this upcoming year, but we have planned accordingly and will work hard toward maintaining the quality of our programs and departments.

We are grateful for each of the new children we welcomed into our home this year—almost 100!

Each child who comes has new hope for the future as part of our family.

Rafael Bermúdez with estudiantina and dance troupe.

Although we face difficult economic times, we will not let this affect the quality of life of our children and we will continue to accept new children in need into our home. We are especially proud of the success of our HOPE Program, which reaches out to children who live in extreme poverty in the state of Guerrero, home to a large population of Mixteca people, an indigenous group who have maintained their native language and culture. We now have a significant community of Mixteca children, all of whom come from areas of extreme poverty. When we welcome these children into the home, not only are many behind in school, but they only speak their native language and must learn to speak Spanish. One such child is David, who entered the home this year to be with his siblings and cousins. David had already finished high school when he joined our family, so we allowed him to enter the home in his Year of Service. Once he finishes, he will continue on to university. David wants to study education so that he can return home to his indigenous community after receiving his degree and help improve the education system there. We are proud to have David in our family and to be able to help him achieve his dream of receiving a university education, which he can then use to help others.

Along with expanding our outreach, another accomplishment this year was the expansion of our Life Transition Program, which helps prepare our young adults who are not able to continue studying at the high school level. This program works with the young adults to find them a place to study vocational programs, find jobs and become independent. The students are now required to both study and work in order to prepare themselves for their future. They study fields as varied as cosmetology, computer programming, graphic design and English. Monica is a young woman of 19, who, because of a physical disability, has missed a lot of school due to surgeries and recovery periods. Through hard work and dedication, she was able to finish secondary school last year and has now entered this program to study for a vocational degree in graphic design. She is one of more than twenty young people currently in this program.

Security in our home is a top priority. We hold security training talks with our staff and take all measures necessary to ensure the safety of all our children, employees, and volunteers. We welcome visitor groups to continue to travel to our home.

We would like to thank all who have supported us this year, allowing us to continue the mission of our beloved founder, Father Wasson. We ask for your continued support, so that we may continue to offer the best quality of care to our children.

Rafael Bermúdez National Director, NPH Mexico

10 NPH Mexico 2012

Graduates 18: University 29: High School 63: Primary 13: Kindergarten 29: Vocational Certification

65: Year of Service Youth 90: University Students 20: Volunteers 74: Baptisms and Confirmations 173: Outreach recipients Friends pose in from of their dorm in Miacatlán.

Home Life NPH Mexico, established in 1954, was the first of the nine NPH homes. In 2014, we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of NPH! We hope you will join us for the main event, the International Family Weekend, to be hosted in Mexico in February of 2014.

NPH Mexico is comprised of four different home sites in the towns of Miacatlán, Cuernavaca, Monterrey and Matamoros – caring for over 780 children and youths from 27 of the 31 states in Mexico.

Child welfare agencies estimate that thousands of children have been orphaned or abandoned as a result of the violence near the US-Mexico border. Many of these children have never attended school and do not know how to read or write. The Ciudad Juarez Project is a program that began in 2011 in order to reach out to these vulnerable children. This year we welcomed 21 new children from Ciudad Juarez into our home. Our goal is to accept a total of 100 children and we are grateful for the opportunity to provide them with a safe home.

This year we hired more caregivers and combined sections at our home in Miacatlán, putting larger groups of children in the dormitories together but with more adults caring for them. This change will provide them with greater adult attention.

We are proud of our accomplishments with local fundraising including adding 40 new local sponsors for our children. We have also continued our relationship with a local organization which sponsors 45 children in our secondary school. Over the past two years they have helped us with a “Generation of Excellence” campaign. We plan to continue our fruitful relationships with local organizations for the 2013-2014 school year, which will be a significant source of funding. Additionally our goal is to open a fundraising office in Monterrey, a business/industrial city in the north of Mexico, where our university students live.

The Women’s Empowerment Group for our young women in high school was launched in 2012. It has been a successful program in which the girls meet once a week to discuss topics such as relationships, health, and social issues. This has been a positive influence on the girls and we look forward to its accomplishments in the year to come.

Another successful program is that of our leadership groups. There are groups at our main home in Miacatlán, at our high school in Cuernavaca, and at the university home in Monterrey. At the high school, the group meets for 1.5 hours weekly, to learn organizational skills, responsibility and communication. One accomplishment of the group was planning weekend activities for all the students to participate in such as a scavenger hunt and relays.

The opportunity to participate in Guías de México, the equivalent of Girl Scouts in the United States, is provided to our high school girls in Cuernavaca. It is a year-long commitment for the girls where they attend meetings every other Saturday and learn about life skills, leadership and community involvement.

Ciudad de los Niños, our home in Matamoros, has now been open for three years thanks to the vision of John Shinsky. The home has experienced great success and growth over the years, growing to 41 children. Due to the generosity of many good friends, enough funds have finally been secured Ciudad de los Niños founder John Shinsky with children. to begin construction on a new dormitory which will increase the capacity by 30%. The home continues to offer hope for children from the violent border area in the northeast of Mexico who can now look forward to receiving an education and one day graduating from university.

NPH Mexico 2012 11

Religion Both teaching and practicing religion are important to the formation of the children in our home. This year through the sacrament of Baptism we welcomed 42 children into the Catholic faith. We also celebrated the sacraments of 80 children receiving first communion and 47 being confirmed.

The Edge Program at our home in MiacatlĂĄn is an important part of the religious formation of our young children and youth. A group of 50 children attend weekly hour-long meetings where they participate in prayer and worship as well as activities such as team building and self-reflection. Some of their accomplishments included a retreat and presenting an Edge evening for a group of 40 of the younger girls. The children also focused on giving back and helping the community.

Another important religious program in our high school home is LifeTeen. The group of 50 high school boys and girls meets weekly. This year 20 of our youth were given the opportunity to attend a conference where they spent the weekend praying, worshipping and listening to speakers.

Education To ensure quality education, the teachers in our high school completed a continuing education course, which lasted six months and covered all material necessary for them to take the certification exam. The purpose of the course is to promote values, skills and competencies that are required by today’s standards.

At the end of the school year, two of our high school boys won the Morelos Robotics and Information Competition. Twenty-eight teams from surrounding areas participated in the competition. The boys worked with two external students to engineer their robot which received the gold medal.

Our students in their last year of high school are required to have 240 hours of professional practice and 480 hours of service in order to graduate. The students are completing their professional practice within the home, offering them a wide range of opportunities to gain experience and learn professional skills while benefitting the home. The positions range from working in the kitchen for those studying tourism, to accounting, public relations and library duty.

Our high school is a vocational high school, meaning that each of our young adults chooses an area of study and graduates with a professional certificate as well as the skills necessary to work in that field. We had 34 students graduate in tourism, accounting, electronics, child development, and computer programming.

Our youths graduate from university with competitive degrees and begin working within their field of study and become financially 12 NPH Mexico 2012

independent. We make an effort to hire Hermanos Mayores, or big brothers, within the home and currently have 44 employees in areas such as education, administration, maintenance, and childcare.

Construction and Sustainability We invested in a sustainable energy system called Biobolsa in our home in MiacatlĂĄn.

This system uses the waste from our farm animals in order to generate natural gas for our kitchen as well as organic fertilizer for our crops. Not only is it economically beneficial, but we also look forward to helping the environment and teaching our children about the importance of sustainable energy.

Next year we would like to invest in more sources of sustainable energy. We hope to install solar panels in the homes in order to decrease our energy consumption. We are excited to have more sustainable energy projects in order to raise environmentally conscious children and to teach them to care for the environment in which they live.

Thank You None of our accomplishments this year would have been possible without the help of our supporters. We would like to thank all of our donors, godparents, fundraising offices and friends for their contributions to the home this year. Your generosity has made it possible for us to care for and improve the lives of the children in our home here in Mexico. From all of us here at NPH Mexico, we are grateful for your continued involvement and offer a big thank you for helping us to be able to provide a safe and loving home for our children!

honduras Dear Friends, “All is well, and all will be well”. These words of the great Christian mystic, Julian of Norwich, give me strength and provide new perspective as I look back on 2012. The year began with the new reality of a budget deficit brought on by changes in local laws that made doing what we do here in Honduras more expensive than ever before. With expenses up and no idea of what new money might come in, I was worried about what this might mean for our children and programs. It’s only in hindsight that I am able to see that all was indeed well.

Our children, volunteers and staff…and somehow our programs too, proved to be incredibly resilient, able to accept the new realities of working with less and doing what can be done with what is available. As a family, we approached the year with faith and confidence, working together to conserve and save while not losing sight of the importance of growth.

We are now proudly producing all of our own cheese from our milk production, thanks to our friends in Holland and Germany, resulting in almost $25,000 in savings for the year. Thanks to the generous donations and the support from Fondazione Francesca Rava-NPH Italy, we began our own bread production, that will also help us save significantly. We are now able to raise our pigs for next to no cost, using the leftover whey from the cheese production and donated grain husks for feed. A handful of designated gifts received this year have allowed us to update, improve, or repair many of our antiquated buildings and facilities. These incredible investments will help us save on countless repair costs for years to come.

Despite the challenges, many new children came to our home and found love, security, a second chance, a family. Hundreds received life-changing surgery in the Holy Family Surgery Center and many more received dignified care in our external clinic. With funds provided by a faithful friend and supporter and with the help of our Outreach Coordinator, we were able to provide an education to many more of those children cursed by geography, living too far from the schools they need.

It is true that the financial constraints on our home and the harsh realities of violence and unrest in Honduras bring with them many new challenges, but they are challenges that serve as constant reminders of why we are here.

Father Wasson said that he “refused to believe that God would allow us to be more generous than Him”. Through all the help and support we have received this year, with each new word spilling out of our babies’ mouths, with each new graduate, I know this to be true. As we continue our work in faith, with the confidence and understanding that all is indeed well, we remain very grateful to those who make this work possible, our incredible staff and volunteers, friends and sponsors. To all of you, who walk with us and ensure the brightest possible future for our children in Honduras, I thank you.

God bless, Stefan Feuerstein National Director, NPH Honduras

We also worked hard throughout the year to find new sources of local income. We won a grant from HSBC Bank to help cover most of the costs of running our vocational workshops and another from the German Embassy to help with repairs to our external clinic. And thanks to the generosity of one particular donor, together with many of our past volunteers and visitors, and with the faithful cooperation of Friends of the Orphans USA, we were able to secure funding to continue our Vocational Internship Program and ensure our high school and university students received the support they needed.

NPH Honduras 2012 13

Graduates 5: University 9: High School 20: Primary 16: Kindergarten 138: Vocational Certification 47: Year of Service Youth 50: University Students 21: Volunteers 49: Baptisms and Confirmations 6,728: Outreach recipients

Little Steps Daycare.

Home Life Despite financial constraints handed down in 2012 and some of the inevitable consequences of the shortage of funds, we have found ways to be more efficient and lean in the way we work. We have worked hard to secure new funding locally as well as through furthered cooperation with the fundraising offices. We have also completed and presented a new Strategic Plan for the next five years of NPH Honduras. A plan which outlines through definitions and structure the meaning and foundations of the work we do and the specific ways in which together we can achieve the mission.

communions, and confirmations in 2012. This increased interest in faith has also been sparked by the catechism which takes place in our religion program at the Montessori school. Here children learn about faith through various hands-on activities that encourage their spiritual development with God on an interactive level.

Though funds were tight, this past year we reserved time and energy for important events such as the birthdays of our children and for various offsite outings. In fact, one of the most memorable activities this year was on Children’s Day, when all of our children were blessed to have been gifted free tickets from a local movie theater. These types of experiences play a huge part of a happy childhood upbringing.

Outreach In 2012, we invested time and some designated resources to better serve and respond to those most in need living in our surrounding communities. We kept in mind Father Wasson’s greatest hope for his children, “that they practice charity”, and we know that we must lead by the example he gave us and provide opportunities for our children to give back.

This year one of our leadership groups “Youth in Action” took initiative by heading up a workshop for NPH caregivers and volunteers designed to reassert the principles and philosophy of Father Wasson through interactive activities and group discussions.

By contributing to the well-being of our own family, our children have demonstrated their will to work as a team and their ability to not only identify problems, but also provide them with realistic solutions.

Religion Due largely in part to the energetic presence of Sister Kolbe, who we welcomed back to our home last year, we saw an incredible number of pequeños celebrate their faith through baptisms, first NPH2009 Honduras 114NPHI Annual2012 Report

In July, 56 of our middle school and high school aged children partook in a challenging 3-day religious pilgrimage in which they walked from the capital city of Tegucigalpa to the town of Talanga, 40 miles away. Our children were able to connect with scores of youth from other parts of the country who came also to prove their faith through this physically demanding journey.

The NPH sponsored Comedor Infantil, a soup kitchen in a nearby city, provides daily meals to 29 children, kids who would not otherwise receive a meal were it not for this resource. The families of these children also benefit by gaining free healthcare from the NPH external clinic. The “Baby Nutrition Program,” which began in March, through collaboration with another organization, currently offers monthly care to over 50 infants by supervising their growth and providing their mothers with a micronutrient-rich supplement.

Located in Tegucigalpa, “Pasos Pequeñitos” is a full-time daycare center for single mothers. It is designed to help the mothers achieve educational, personal and professional goals by providing a safe, loving environment where children can stay during the day while their mothers work or attend school. It currently cares for 16 children daily, which range in age from 2 months to 10 years.

Our children also took the idea of community service into their own hands this year when the “Youth in Action” leadership group teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build a home for an impoverished family of five. Working on the construction project in Tegucigalpa from empty dirt lot to fully-functioning home, our children saw the benefits of their hard work and determination as they dedicated their time and energy to help a family in-need.

Youth in Action helping to build a house.

External clinic.

For the many children living outside our home who do have families to support them, yet don’t have the resources to receive an education, we are sometimes able to offer our assistance in the form of academic scholarships. Also, thanks to a special donation designated for this specific purpose, we just finished a large project to restore the failing roof of an elementary school in a nearby village, so its teachers have a safe, stable environment in which to educate their students.

This year we have also continued our mission to provide highquality medical care to our local Honduran community. Our external medical clinic has maintained its exceptional service, where our staff of doctors, nurses, and volunteers provides consultations and medication to upwards of 35 patients daily. In October, our external clinic also sent its staff on a medical brigade to a village three and a half hours away where they provided 135 people with otherwise unattainable treatment and medication.

In 2012 we also hosted four separate surgical brigades at Holy Family Surgery Center. our on-site Holy Family Surgery Center. These brigades brought teams of doctors and medical personnel who specialize in a wide spectrum of fields ranging from orthopedics, to gynecology, to podiatry. With their combined efforts in 2012 we were able to surgically treat more than 250 Hondurans (including several of our own children and staff members) and offer medical consults to an additional 1,400 patients.

Education This year we were very proud to have seen seven more of our pequeños graduate with university degrees. Two of these graduates, Dora Berríos and Edwin Vallecillo, had been studying General Medicine in Cuba and have now returned to Honduras after six years of study abroad. The two doctors are currently offering their expertise here at the Ranch in our internal and external medical clinics until they begin a two-year service program for the Honduran government.

This year we have worked hard to engage our surrounding community to generate funds for several of our education programs.

These local donations include a grant from HSBC Bank for $25,000 which helped cover a good portion of the funding of our vocational workshops for 2012, ensuring that even with limited resources our youths still have the opportunity to develop their skills and achieve competence in their individual trades.

We have also been blessed this year to have seen visiting groups from Near North Montessori School in Chicago. Through our new collaboration and friendship with them, we are very excited about the advancement and continued development of our own Montessori programs.

Hermanos Mayores Even when our children are grown and leave the home, we strive to remain a stronghold for them throughout their lives; a place they can always call home and come to for help and support. Our Hermanos Mayores Progam continues our relationship with the young adults who have left our home, though no longer legally ours, they still remain very much a part of our family. Currently the program supports around 250 Hermanos Mayores, “older brothers and sisters”, offering them help in a variety of ways. They may come to NPH for financial support when they or their child is sick, or when they lose a job. We assist them when they need help drafting resumes, practicing for job interviews, or searching for an apartment. Some Hermanos Mayores who wish to continue with higher education or specialty training are able to receive small merit-based scholarships.

This year we welcomed three Hermanos Mayores into employee positions here at NPH Honduras. Elzer Sabillón now works on the Ranch, heading up many tasks as he works with visitors, projects, and the MyGoodShop web page. Nidia is a former pequeña who began this year as our full-time NPH social worker. Denis Morales took control of the Hermanos Mayores department and our vocational internship program. We are proud to have these members of our family doing exceptional work for NPH as new employees and great examples for their younger brothers and sisters.

NPH Honduras 2012 15

New bakery at Rancho Santa Fe.

Construction and Projects This year we are proud to have begun producing fresh bread at the new on-site bakery alongside our kitchen. In late April we inaugurated the bakery during a visit from renowned Italian baker Marco Randon, who taught our pequeños the art of breadmaking. Since his visit, the Ranch has continued to produce its own Italian bread, made by our children.

In 2012, we’ve seen the reparation of many of the older buildings on the Ranch as well as the beginnings of a couple new ones. We received specific funding to replace all the damaged roofs of our children’s homes on a priority basis. We have also finished the much-needed renovation of our general warehouse facility. This storage area holds all of our food, clothing, and hygiene products and with this renovation we can ensure better control and distribution of all of our materials. Just next door, the kitchen is slated for renovation to begin in 2013. As one of the oldest buildings on the Ranch, this renovation will assure better sanitation and increased efficiency among our kitchen staff as they prepare thousands of meals daily.

A $10,000 grant won through the German Embassy along with other donated funds allowed us to repair and remodel our external medical clinic. This new building, with its updated walls and roof, ensures a durable, well-built structure that hosts safe and quality care for those most in need in the local community.

Children with special needs both physical and mental often require a particular level of attention 16 NPH Honduras 2012

and different home environment to facilitate their best care. With more and more cases coming in of children with these specific conditions, a generous donation was designated to help us build a home to receive and take care of this growing population.

Thank You We would like to send a special thank you to our entire extended family of fundraisers and supporters for all of their dedication, hard work, prayers and support. We are Construction of the special needs home. incredibly grateful for one specific donor who helped with the launching of a matching campaign to respond to the financial constraints we faced this year. Thank you to the NPH International service teams: Family Services, Finance, and Medical Services, which have been a great support as we continue our efforts to provide the best possible care, even as resources are limited. A special thanks to the Daly family who have gone above and beyond their mission with the Holy Family Surgery Center. Thank you to James Corcoran for your friendship and continued support, a true ambassador of the work that we are striving to accomplish. To R.J. Johnson and friends, for your immense generosity and responsiveness to the needs of the children of Honduras and the work of NPH we are ever so grateful. And thank you Father Ken Hume, our dear “Padre Tortilla”, as always we are grateful for your presence and your interest in the upkeep of our home and well-being of our children.

haiti Dear Friends, The year 2012 was for us a year of continued recovery from the 2010 twin disasters of the earthquake and cholera, and of seeking an equilibrium for all our new programs and those who benefit from them. Financial equilibrium, of course, but more importantly getting into balance our goals for the children, the skills of the teams on whom success depends, and bringing all the activities of each program into a harmonious and sustainable rhythm.

We spent another year caring for thousands of patients with cholera (and did so with a decreased death rate), we were able to build our school for the deaf and the blind called “St. Joan Margaret School”, we were able to build the new St. Anne Home for the youngest children in the Father Wasson Angels of Light Program, and we opened our guest center “Villa Francesca”, to name a few milestones.

We also built a memorial at the site of our old hospital, to the memory of the phenomenal young people, Ryan Kloos and Molly Hightower, whose lives were tragically brought to an end there by the earthquake along with our Haitian brothers and sisters who perished.

But mostly, we spent another year faithful to our calling: caring for the widow and the orphan, comforting the sorrowful, healing the sick, teaching the young and marginalized, proclaiming a new year of favor, of grace, of hope. What are we without hope?

I hope you enjoy these pages. May they come alive with the wonders of the children, and their hopes for tomorrow, which you are so generously helping them to realize!

God bless you! Thank you sincerely, Fr. Rick Frechette, CP National Director, NPFS Haiti

St. Philomena Chapel at NPH Haiti St. Damien Pediatric Hospital, Fr. Rick with child from St. Anne home.

NPH Haiti 2012 17

Message from the Program Directors St. Helene We are happy for everything that God has brought us for the children. Thanks to our donors, the children’s dorms now have hot and cold running water. It gets very cold up in the mountains where our home is located.

Our children performed very well on the national exams with 98% receiving passing scores. With our donors’ support, we now have a new water purification system which provides clean drinking water for the home.

Thanks to a generous donor, the children had a great Christmas party and each child received a present. We are all very grateful for their generosity. In 2013, we hope to make much needed reparations to the children’s dorms, Sr. Bonite Noelfils begin construction on a new kitchen, and strengthen our relationships with our friends, sponsors, and supporters.

We also opened our doors to 26 new children in 2012. We are fortunate to have a full-time, onsite doctor for our children at St. Helene.

This will prove to be a significant cost savings decision as we will not have to expend as much on outside private practitioners.

Through a generous donation by Comme Il Faut, the St. Helene house was blessed with the gift Children eating dinner at St. Helene. of a generator that will provide electricity to all dorms. Additionally, the same donor provided Christmas gifts for each child, including a party with food and drinks.

This year about 20 of our children in the HIV/Community Health Program were hosted for two weeks at a summer camp tailored specifically for children with their special needs. Additionally during the summer months, 12 of our children travelled to Poland to participate in the DANONE Soccer World Cup – the experience of a lifetime. Another group of 15 children were invited to Italy, courtesy of the Italian Coast Guard, hosted by the Francesca Rava Foundation, NPH Italy.

Sr. Bonite Noelfils Director, St. Helene

18 NPH Haiti 2012

Special Needs Programs Our programs are located in three facilities: Kay Christine, Kay Germaine and Kay Elaine. We were happy to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with all of our children, especially Olsen, who had a rough year medically and his condition Gena Heraty holds a St. Helene child. is serious but thanks to God, he is improving. It is always a blessing when we make it through the year with everyone. In 2012, we began workshops where older children with special needs learn skills to increase independence.

For 2013, we are focusing on the education of the neurologically impaired at our three centers. We aim to improve training and offer more support for our teachers who work lovingly with our special needs children, and assist them in becoming more resourceful and improving their skills. Construction of Kay Gabriel, a program for adults with neurological impairments, is underway.

On behalf of the children and NPH, thank you to all of our friends, without whom we would not exist. Even the smallest help will go a long way if we all pitch in.

God bless you all, Gena Heraty Director, Special Needs Programs

46: University Students 203: High School and Professional Students 600: Fr. Wasson Angels of Light External Students 364: St. Helene External Students 12: Full-time Volunteers 207: Baptisms and Confirmations 100,413: Outreach recipients St. Anne Baby House

Father Wasson Angels of Light Program For our program, 2012 was a good year. What was most memorable was the completion of our free primary school, preschool and the St. Anne baby house. With the construction of the new schools, we can now educate our 800 Kenson Kaas smiles with St. Anne child. children, including external students.

Currently, the St. Anne baby house has 37 children with capacity for 40. The additional space allows us to respond to urgent cases, such as accepting a child in immediate need of shelter like baby Wasson Leon, who was abandoned outside the gates of our flagship home St. Helene in Kenscoff. Thank God, baby Wasson is now a healthy and happy infant on his way to a brighter future than he would have ever had. These projects were possible because of our diligent fundraisers in Europe.

In 2012, the cost of everything increased. There were many things that we could not do. We experienced great challenges to find enough food to provide a meal during the school day for our external students. Presently, we are able to provide a hot meal to 800 children. Some of our students walk for hours to get to school.

A warm meal during the school day helps provide the incentive for them to make the trek to school. We downsized our staff and reduced our social activities so that we could respond to the children’s needs. The gifts for Christmas were smaller, but every child received a small gift.

In preparation for 2013, we hope to begin the construction of familystyle houses for 160 of our boys and girls in our St. Louis home. We already have commitments from one of our European supporters.

We hope to finish a playground at the FWAL Elementary School which will allow our children to exercise and participate in sporting events such as soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. As our older children mature, we plan to start a Year of Service Program, where older youths can help as caregivers and in other capacities.

Kenson Kaas Director, Fr. Wasson Angels of Light

Education Graduates 3: University 65: Primary 54: Kindergarten

In 2012, we were proud to have three of our children graduate from university with degrees in nursing. They are beginning their Year of Service. These three young ladies will serve in the hospitals and look for employment. One of them will continue on to medical school.

We happily report that we currently have 46 children in university.

That number includes the young men and women studying in other countries: Mexico, Dominican Republic, Germany and the U.S. Kay Germaine continues to offer therapy services and special education schooling daily to an average of 80 children per week, plus therapy services to 50 adults (stroke patients) per week. Outreach programs such as the Wish Card business and micro credit loans to families continue to reinforce the commitment to helping families with neurologically challenged children. Kay Elaine, which opened in March of 2011, has an average of 50 patients per week for physical therapy and pre-school stimulation.

St. Germaine Special Needs School.

St. Francois Professional School.

In April, the President of Mexico, with his wife and the Haitian Prime Minister, visited the St. Francois Professional School. This school, located in Tabarre near St. Damien Pediatric Hospital, serves a total of 175 students providing certification in five different skills: telecommunications, nursing, electricity specializing in solar panel installation, plumbing and carpentry.

NPH Haiti 2012 19

St. Damien Public Health outreach.

Construction and Projects: We have 249 youths in our Don Bosco Program for higher education. With donations from our friends, we were able to complete the construction of homes for 79 of our children (40 young ladies and 39 young men). A total of 170 youth live externally (84 young ladies and 86 young men).

Hotel Villa Francesca.

With funds provided by our supporters in Germany, we were able to construct a small oxygen plant which provides oxygen to St. Damien and St. Luke affiliated hospitals and clinics.

With funds provided by various Italian supporters, the construction of 50 homes in the Cite Soleil slum was completed, providing much needed shelter and home ownership to 50 families.

Maternity OR.

St. Damien Oncology department.

20 NPH Haiti 2012

Another milestone for us was the completion of Hotel Villa Francesca. This facility provides accommodation to hundreds of visitors, including short term and long term volunteers.

Healthcare St. Damien is the only pediatric hospital in Haiti that provides complete medical care from prenatal care for pregnant women to caring for children through the age of 15. The maternity ward has 42 beds, two new operating rooms, five delivery beds and employs 53 people under the leadership of Dr. Aupont, program manager for high-risk pregnancy.

The new maternity program cared for and delivered almost 3,700 babies. Triplets were born in June and quadruplets were born in October. Funds for the completion of this unit were provided by NPH Italy, Francesca Rava Foundation.

Our cancer center has served 150 children, providing them a second chance in a country where cancer is a death sentence. St. Damien has the only pediatric oncology program in Haiti. We are humbled and grateful to be able to serve the people of Haiti in the treatment of this terrible illness.

Our dental clinic has served 5,334 patients, including children and adults. In total, St. Damien served over 99,000 people in 2012.

Outreach activities of St. Damien are the HIV Clinic and the Community Health Clinic. These clinics not only provide outpatient treatment, they also provide medicine, follow-up treatment, education and training on disease prevention and spread, and management of the disease for both adults and children. The Community Health Clinic also provides outpatient services, vaccinations, contamination prevention, education and training on public health, and neighborhood cleanup.

Yearly, 10,000 adults and children are screened for HIV. Together with their parents, the children infected with HIV receive psychological support and medical treatment including antiretroviral therapy (ART). Social workers help coordinate with other programs offering economic help including food, possibly housing, vocational training, micro credit opportunities, and school. To date, approximately 900 children are followed, 361 receive ART. Sixty pregnant women infected with HIV are followed or have given birth through the prevention program.

St. Damien Pediatric Hospital Departments Pediatrics Neonatal Maternity Surgery Triage Oncology Tuberculosis Malnutrition HIV Public Health Dental Total served: 99,037

St. Damien Pediatric Hospital wards. Photos: Douglas Ford Rea.

Thank You We would like to thank the entire extended family of fundraisers and supporters for all of their dedication, hard work, support and prayers. We are indebted to all of our friends, sponsors, donors, godparents, supporters and volunteers for their commitment to the children of NPH Haiti this past year and for their continued collaboration and partnership with us as we move into 2013.

We thank especially Friends of the Orphans for their unwavering support, the entire NPH family for supporting us with their love and making their resources available to us in so many different ways, such as recruiting volunteers to serve in Haiti and providing sustainability for our programs. Thank you to the Francesca Rava Foundation for their commitment to NPH Haiti, their continued efforts to build homes, schools and clinics for the people we serve, 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

and for providing the much needed funding. Thank you to Akron Children’s Hospital and the Mayo Clinic for the steady visits of medical professionals who come to provide medical care for our children and training for our staff. Thank you to the Rotary Club for its sponsorship of children for heart surgery. Thank you to Mending Kids International for sending their medical brigade to NPH Haiti as part of their first mission to Haiti. Thank you to Artists for Peace and Justice for sharing their vision to educate the children of Haiti. Thank you to Urban Zen for sharing their talents in yoga with our young patients and staff. Thank you to the Sugarhill Church of California, St. Andrews Church of Arizona, St. Simon and Jude Church of Arizona and many other groups and individuals throughout the world for their friendship, help and support as we continue to work to provide care and increased opportunities to the people of Haiti.

NPH Haiti 2012 21

nicaragua Dear Family, Greetings from our family in Nicaragua; we are so grateful for all you do for us. This has been a year full of achievements for our family, and it is hard to talk about it without thanking the people who have helped.

Marlon Velasquez at NPH Nicaragua.

I would like to start by thanking our children, for doing their best to work hard during the difficult times we are living through. Our children have helped our family by planting and picking beans along with other vegetables and fruits. Our Year of Service youth were also willing to give back part of their monthly stipend so we could use it for other needs. All of our family worked hard to make the soccer field a reality. Thanks to their effort we had it ready for the sixth annual NPH International Soccer Tournament, where our family from several of our other homes joined to celebrate, share and play soccer for one week. Our Nicaraguan boys’ and girls’ teams won the tournament which was a momentous occasion for our home.

Our staff has also given their best for our family and we can see it through the love that our children feel at the home. It is a true example of love to see them working side by side with our children in different areas, becoming substitute parents, having patience and walking by their side during their milestones.

I would like to recognize Father Alberto Cisneros for being the spiritual pastor we have been searching for. Also our local Family Services team of Aura and Benito, who helped our children understand the vision of our NPH family and Father Wasson. I could not run this family without the continued help of our house directors, coordinators and volunteers.

However, I would like to give special thanks to the people whose work makes our job possible: the NPH European offices, and Friends of the Orphans, USA and Canada. I have been a witness of the work you do and heard the sacrifices you went through so we can support our children. Please keep on working hard and remember that we always appreciate all you do. To our donors and sponsors, thank you for always believing in us and please keep sending your love and support. All of this makes our family strong. We remember that no matter what, God is with us. Thank you for all your love and support and for the next year, we ask for your prayers.

Peace and all good things.

May God bless you all, Marlon Velazquez National Director, NPH Nicaragua

22 NPH Nicaragua 2012

Graduates 1: University 5: High School 15: Primary 9: Kindergarten Graduates University: 1 Secondary: 16 Primary: 25 Vocational certifications: 54

Year of Service Youths: 37 University students: 16 External students: 23 Volunteers: 10

43: Year of Service Youth 20: University Students 13: Volunteers 79: Baptisms, Confirmations and First Communions 4,023: Outreach recipients

NPH Peque単a helps a child eat at Nandaime landfill.

Education The primary and secondary schools of NPH continue to be considered at a higher academic level compared to the external educational institutes. The path of most of the peque単os is directed to university studies which means that NPH is able to provide a good educational platform. Our students continue to win scientific and literature competitions showing the high quality of NPH education. The main project for the next year is to build a separate secondary school. Currently the primary and secondary school students are using the same building. To guarantee a better autonomy and appropriate infrastructure, a secondary school building is needed.

In addition, the performance of external students has been very positive and due to the fact that there is no enrollment fee, this can be seen as an additional outreach program for local children, which is of great benefit to our relationship with the Nicaraguan government.

Religion Just in time for last Easter, the new small chapel located in our clinic building was inaugurated, offering an open space for anyone to pray and reflect in a peaceful spiritual environment. The level of involvement of the children in every religious activity is always very high as well as the increasing number of kids being part of the choir and of the religious music group, thanks to the efforts of Father Alberto Cisneros. A project for the future is to build a separate chapel on the NPH property as currently almost every religious event is celebrated in the common area of the dining hall.

Outreach Nandaime Landfill, one of the largest garbage dumps, is located just five minutes from our home. There are many families living and working, trying to make money from selling goods from the trash or recycling them. The conditions of life are miserable, the poverty is extreme and the risk of catching diseases is very high. The families live in small shacks inside the landfill with their children.

happiness to this community. After donating clothes, games and materials, a delegation of children and employees went to visit the landfill, bringing gifts and food, and organizing games and activities for the families. The project is still ongoing with continuous donations of food and clothing to the community and monthly visits which include physical and occupational therapy.

The Nandaime Drug Prevention Program is coordinated by Father Alberto, and aims to increase the level of awareness and education on the theme of drug abuse in the schools of the city of Nandaime.

The problem of drug abuse is very serious in Nicaragua and this program provides complete information and education on the risks of drug addiction. The program operates in three schools with a total audience of 2,700 students, Fr. Alberto with monthly visits.

The Samaritan Project began in 2010 at NPH on Ometepe Island. Four therapists from Austria started to work with children with disabilities that previously did not receive any care. After moving the NPH home to the mainland, two volunteers stayed on the island to continue to provide support for the children and their families. The project offers: physical and occupational therapy, psychological care, financial assistance, medical care, food baskets, and training workshops. There are currently 22 children in this program.

During Holy Week, a delegation of Casa Padre Wasson went to visit local tribes in the department of Esteli in the north of the country, donating clothes to 35 families. This is an activity organized once per year. In collaboration with two dioceses, Father Alberto coordinated the activity to donate clothes to 17 poor rural communities and to 1,000 imprisoned persons (male and female).

NPH Nicaragua is aware of the situation for these families and children, and we began an initiative to bring some smiles and 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPH Nicaragua 2012 23

Pequeño tour in the United States.

Special Events A huge event this past year was the pequeño tour in the U.S. of the dance and music troupes. Thanks to their great performances of folkloric Nicaraguan music and dance, they raised awareness about NPH and assisted with fundraising.

Hermanos Mayores At the moment, we have four hermanos mayores who are employed

by NPH: three are working as caregivers and one is working in the accounting department. Thirty-one (11 females and 20 males) are receiving economic support every month to sustain their new lives outside of NPH. Their progress is monitored by the social work department through group and individual meetings.

New sidewalks.

Construction and Agriculture A long sidewalk now provides a safe walking path to the main areas of the property avoiding problems during the rainy season. The visitor house now has solar panels which provide hot water.

The construction of two vocational workshops is completed and the new well and wastewater treatment system are almost ready.

Our agricultural production improved to help with the financial challenges, especially beans and plantains at Casa Santiago (Ometepe Island). Also the production at Casa Asis (where the babies used to live) and Casa Padre Wasson is increasing with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables (watermelon, melon, tomatoes, peppers and more). At Casa Asis, we are also breeding chickens and pigs, providing meat to Casa Padre Wasson. Thanks to the use of the large fields of Casa Padre Wasson, we now have enough beans for all of 2013.

Youths helping to pick beans.

24 NPH Nicaragua 2012

The focus on agricultural production is very high and an increased number of Year of Service youth are dedicated to work in the fields and greenhouse to assure an improved efficiency.

All of our green areas and gardens have been improved, cleaned and embellished with new benches, tables and decorations, both by the workers and by the children themselves who showed major awareness and responsibility toward their own green spaces.

Thank You These achievements would not have been possible without the help of all the people around the world. We would like to thank: Ken Spears and Peter King (coordinators of the Canadian groups) and Friends of the Orphans Canada; Lulu Daly for the donation for the cure and treatments of Brenda; all the families which hosted our kids during the Pequeño tour in the U.S., and in particular Scott and Mary Lane for their donations and hospitality; Tammy Highlfill for her generous help; Audrey Hudgins for her help for the workshop project; Susan Lovegreen for the great involvement in donating and raising funds as well as hospitality in the U.S. for the dance team; Joel Hanson and his groups of generous visitors; Yves Wijnants for the touching donations of Christmas presents; Ana Buehler for her donations and her ongoing search for new godparents; the Chicago Marathon; Heel Hilversum Helpt and Water for the World Foundation Germany for the new Wastewater Treatment System; Wilde Ganzen and Kiwanis Naarden for the Second Well; Achmea Foundation for the new workshop; Jochnick Foundation for the electricity project; Umoja Foundation for the donation of new shoes for our kids; Friends of the Orphans U.S.; Wolfgang and Helga Klinke; Kindermissionswerk; Granzow Estate; Kellie Dean; John Shinsky; Bill Paolino; Anna and Hans Buehler; Father Frank’s Kids; Theola and Don Hopkins; The American-Nicaraguan Foundation and Food for the Poor. A special thanks to all the fundraising offices.

We are especially thankful for all the godparents, who are so important in the lives of the pequeños. We thank God for having blessed us with so many kindhearted people that make a difference in the life of each and every one of our children.

guatemala

Jan Leiritz, center, during quinceaĂąeras celebration.

Dear Family and Friends, This year we made adaptations to our policies that will allow us to conform to changes in Guatemalan law and thus take care of the children for a longer period of time, allowing the children to receive the help that is truly needed. In effect, we have started a “scholarship system� for orphaned, abandoned or otherwise at-risk children who come from low social and economic backgrounds, allowing these children to live and study with us for as long as necessary. This gives us the liberty to accept children according to the guidelines that Father Wasson left for us and lets us reach the high standards that we wish to realize for NPH Guatemala. We have a team that has been working diligently with us and with the government to allow us to realize this goal.

We are very happy about an opportunity that our home has received which allows us to build a new visitor house. It is a humbling experience to realize how many people have taken an interest in our home and children and wish to continually come and help us. It is thanks to these visitors that we have the opportunity to grow our family and our home, and for that we are truly grateful.

problems with our childcare staff and she thought that she was going to be sent away. She told me that she was so happy and thankful to have had the time that she received here and was most grateful that she had finished her elementary school studies and could take her knowledge with her when she left. To listen to her talk about what she was going to take with her really touched my heart. I was worried about her hearing with the judge and what the possible outcome might be, but when the day came, I was so happy to hear that the judge had decided to give her one last chance living with us at NPH. Watching her now I can see that she is trying and is happy to be here with her NPH family.

We are happy to provide a family for our children and are pleased that our family continues to grow despite the obstacles we face.

Thank you to all those who make this possible, for it is all your work combined that ensures that our family remains strong.

Jan Leiritz National Director, NPH Guatemala

Our school celebrated its 15th year of providing an education to our home and the local community. In the past three years our outreach into the local communities has grown as we have been able to increase enrollment of local students, allowing them to receive an education that otherwise they would not have had access to.

This is the first year that some of our high school students are studying in the capital and living on their own. They have taken the skills that they acquired at the home and have been able to live together in one house where cooking and cleaning responsibilities are shared amongst everyone.

I would like to end this letter with a personal story from this past year. In December when many of our children were on vacation visiting their families, there were still children with no one to go home to who stayed at NPH. One of our girls expressed a fear to me that at her next court hearing she was going to be sent to another home by the government because she had been having many 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPH Guatemala 2012 25

Graduates 10: High School 10: Primary 4: Kindergarten 167: Vocational Certificate 37: Year of Service youth 22: University Students 33: Volunteers 90: Baptisms and Confirmations 522: Outreach recipients New visitor housing under construction.

Education This year NPH Guatemala accomplished many amazing things. The first being a better school system that was implemented at the beginning of the 2012 school year. This new system allows the children to go to school in the morning, break for lunch, and then return to school where they can receive extra tutoring and complete their homework. This has proved to be very effective for our children and the school continues to look into ways to make further improvements.

Our Montessori school spent its first year in their new buildings.

Eight students graduated from Montessori school this year and will continue to elementary school where we are looking to implement the Montessori method in the lower grades as well.

university students. This new house not only provides more space for our current students, but it also allows space for future students.

One of our youths, Jacinto, received the NPH International Leadership Scholarship making him the second pequeño from our home to study English and leadership in the U.S. Jacinto has been in Seattle since September and we are very proud of him.

Our home in Guatemala uses the government INTECAP (Technical Institute of Training and Productivity) program in our workshops.

Five of the six workshops that are taught are INTECAP certified (welding, baking, sewing, carpentry, and cooking) and in the upcoming year we are looking to have our sixth workshop certified (handicrafts). This year 167 students passed their INTECAP exams and received certificates saying that they have been trained in one of our certified areas, which will be valuable when entering the job market in the future.

Montessori classroom.

We are very proud this year to have the largest number of students ever to be accepted to attend university. They have selected various areas of study and are ready to continue their journey to further their education. When our pequeños head off to the capital to begin their studies, they will be welcomed into our brand new house for

26 NPH Guatemala 2012

Carpentry workshop.

Construction and Home Improvements With help from Friends of the Orphans Canada, we have been able to start construction of our new visitors’ housing and we are hoping to have the first of the dormitories built by February.

Our home received a grant to help us become more self-sustainable.

This grant will give us the opportunity to purchase solar panels that

Lending a hand in the vegetable gardens.

will be put on the roof of the girls’ dormitories, not only powering the building but also providing hot water. We hope to have the new solar panels installed and running by next year.

As our home continues to grow, we are continually looking for new ways to help support our family. We are pursuing new donors within Guatemala. As part of this plan we are looking into having different groups throughout Guatemala come and spend time with our children once a month, not only creating but also strengthening current relationships that we have.

Right now our home is on its way to becoming self-sustaining by cultivating a little less than half of the food that is consumed and we hope within the next year to increase production. This will

Thank You This year we were blessed to have so many amazing opportunities brought to our children and they would not have been possible without all the wonderful friends that we have, located around the world. First we would like to thank Ignatius Gymnasium Amsterdam who helped our schools immensely this year. Thanks to their help and fundraisers we have been able to purchase new books for five subjects, a new jungle gym for our Montessori school, new furniture for the Montessori classrooms, supplies for our workshops, and the 1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

mean not only harvesting more crops but taking better advantage of what we already have provided to us at the home.

Our Hermanos Mayores (older pequeños who have left the home) Department is committed to helping and serving the pequeños who have left the home. This department lends support in various ways such as interview preparation, job applications, scholarship searches, medical attention and educational workshops.

Our home in Guatemala just received our first resident priest, Father James Hurlbert from Chicago. With him here we are hoping to grow and expand our religion department. This will not only mean conducting Mass at the home every week but also strengthening the religious foundation that our children have.

tuition for a student to attend high school in the upcoming year. We would also like to thank Peter and Kathy Ingrim for all the help that they provide us with the various groups that are brought down from Canada every year. Much appreciation and thanks must also be given to Patricia Reconfino, without whom we would not have our new university housing. Lastly we would like to thank Byron Concus and the Davits family for all of their love and support this year.

NPH Guatemala 2012 27

Bolivia-everyday examples

Twenty one year old Alenia attends the university in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to study Industrial Engineering. She hopes that one day she will lead her own company. During the weekends, Alenia travels two hours to her NPH home to stay with her brothers and sisters. Alenia and her older brother Jhonny, who studies Petrol Engineering in the university, believe that it is important that they set a good example for their younger siblings.

dominican republic-everyday determination

After finishing his year of service and with graduation on the horizon, Juan anticipates where life will take him. He recently finished his year of service helping out with construction, carpentry and electrical work. Due to Juan’s age, he is part of a fast-track high school program that allows him to complete high school over two years. Juan is elated to receive his high school diploma this upcoming July but also proud of everything he has accomplished during the past year. Juan will pursue his dream of becoming an accountant.

mexico-everyday perseverance

“There are still words that I sometimes do not know, but I like school a lot.” Gabriela’s new start at NPH Mexico involved many changes. She comes from an indigenous community in Guerrero where the language Mixteco is spoken. She did not speak Spanish when she arrived at NPH. However, despite the challenges that come with moving to a new home, starting a new school, and making new friends, this dedicated nine-year-old is learning Spanish quickly and thriving in school!

guatemala-everyday commitment

Jonathan (photo, left) arrived at NPH Guatemala 15 years ago. Today, he is a successful 21-year-old university student on the path to obtaining a degree in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering.

Jonathan studied mechanics during high school before completing his two years of service to the home in maintenance and the welding workshop. He is currently in his second year of studies at a university in Guatemala City while living at the NPH home for university students.

haiti-everyday good work

Darline was six years old when she joined the NPH family with her brother and sister. At 24-years-old, she is now in her fourth year of nursing school and lives in the student homes of Don Bosco. “My life before NPH was very hard because my grandmother was quite elderly and could no longer work or help us. NPH has given me a future which I could not have had living with my grandmother. I think NPH is a great organization whose goal is to help those who are vulnerable, poor and sick. I am the product of NPH’s good work.”

28 NPHI 2012 Annual Report

honduras-everyday gratitude

After studying electricity in high school, Santiago went on to spend 4.5 years at university, where he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. His studies have taken him to both San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa and led him across the Atlantic for a month-long internship in Germany. Santiago has now returned to NPH Honduras to complete his three years of service, as the supervisor of planning in the Vocational Workshops. “I came here at age seven with no education. Now I’ve finished university! If I hadn’t come to NPH, I would have been working in the fields. I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to study.”

peru-everyday opportunities

Twenty year old Mayra attends university where she studies Tourism, Hotel Management and Gastronomy. “My biggest dream was to study drama and become an actress. I also love languages and that´s why this career was the best choice for me. I enjoy it a lot. Nevertheless, I still think that after finishing college I might study drama. Who knows, I think we have many opportunities open and you always have to have big dreams and try to go for it. Look at me now. I never had imagined that I would go to university.”

el salvador-ever yday productivity

When Rodolfo and his brothers arrived at NPH, they thought they might feel alone because they had lost both of their parents, but NPH soon became their family. “At NPH, my brothers and I have the opportunity to fulfill our dreams and the dreams of our parents. Thank you to Father Wasson, benefactors and donors. You have given all of us at NPH the opportunity for a good and productive life. Thanks to NPH, I am attending university pre-med in Santa Ana, El Salvador. I have a few more years of study to earn my degree in medicine.”

nicaragua-everyday bonds

Milagro and Maria lived with their cousin who was the only real support the two little girls had.

Their mother died when they were very young and their father had already abandoned the family.

This left them in an incredibly difficult situation. They lived in a shack which was basically nothing more than wood slats stacked together with wood benches as beds, no running water and no latrine. They had very minimal opportunities in life when it came to basic necessities such as education, sanitation, nutrition and healthcare, but that all changed since they arrived at NPH. Now, they are fully integrated with the other kids, caregivers, and they are attending school. Due to their difficult life before NPH, they love to have fun, but they are very mature for their age. There is also no denying the strong unity and sisterly bond that is clearly visible between them.

Milagro and Maria’s home prior to NPH.

Milagro and Maria’s bed prior to NPH.

Milagro and Maria’s bed and home at NPH Nicaragua.

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 29

el salvador

Olegario Campos with staff and children from El Salvador.

Dear Friends, We have completed a year full of challenges for our family of NPH El Salvador. We continue with the most important challenge, which is the care of the two young adults who need extra medical care: Wendy and Manuel, who suffer from brain atrophy and restrictive lung disease. Thanks to God, and to the care and attention they receive, they are in stable condition, but we still have the monthly expenses to pay for the unique care they need.

Despite the financial difficulties, we had achievements every day, and we are very proud to say that this year we witnessed our first two pequeñas complete their nursing studies. In addition, we were very happy to see Wendy, despite her physical situation and through great effort, graduate from secondary school. Every day we see our children strive to achieve their goals and that motivates us to do ever more to help them achieve their dreams.

We are grateful to all our generous donors for their unconditional support and their love for the children of NPH El Salvador.

Olegario Campos National Director, NPH El Salvador

Graduates 12: High School 24: Primary 4: Kindergarten 36: Year of Service Youth 27: University Students 2: Volunteers 53: Baptisms. Confirmations, First Communions 116: Outreach recipients

30 NPH El Salvador 2012

Education This year we had two graduates from nursing school. Matilde graduated in March and Elena in September. Elena is continuing her studies to earn a degree in surgical training. We are very proud of our first graduates and our goal is to encourage this field of study since it fits so well with our philosophy of service and, very practically, because the job market for nurses is very good.

This year 12 of our young boys and girls graduated from high school, and they are ready to begin their Year of Service, helping their brothers and sisters.

At the university level, we have twenty-seven young adults studying different careers, such as psychology, medicine, law, accounting and communications.

This year we have two young men and one young lady studying abroad in the United States and Mexico. One of them is studying agriculture in Iowa thanks to a scholarship from the government of El Salvador. Another pequeño is studying graphic design in Mexico. Dora was chosen last September to join the leadership training program in Seattle. Once she completes the program, she will continue in her third year of university in El Salvador, studying to be a psychologist.

Home Life For the second year in a row, we received a donation from a government institution of seeds to grow corn and we were able to produce all the corn needed to have tortillas twice a day.

We have increased production on our farm. Twelve cows produce 110 bottles of milk daily. We use the milk for our baby house and we also make enough cheese to serve it five times a week instead of purchasing it.

In 2012, our music and dance group was able to travel to Boston and Minnesota for the “Pequeño Tour”. Eighteen of our children between the ages of eleven and nineteen stayed in the United States for nineteen days. It was an unforgettable experience to share their culture and life with people from another country and to meet so many of the good folks who support us.

Folkloric in the2011 U.S. with supporters.

NPH2009 Eldancer Salvador 124NPHI Annual Report

Maty, center, during her nursing ceremony.

Community Help During the school year we made several visits to San Mateo, a dining hall Youths are servants of change. where indigent groups receive a meal.

The boys and girls of seventh, eighth and ninth grades provided community service, implementing the philosophy of Father Wasson of charity and service to our neighbors. Our students were assigned different jobs, including cleaning and washing floors, cleaning tables, food preparation, making tortillas, washing dishes and distributing food.

Hermanos Mayores We have a small group of Hermanos Mayores (older pequeños who have left NPH) who are supported by our home in different ways.

To be in the program, a social worker makes a home visit which serves to investigate the conditions in which he or she is living and to assess the level of help needed. Currently we help 11 Hermanos Mayores, receiving a monthly food basket and counseling. Once they are able to achieve stability in their lives by finding a job, the support can then be offered to a new participant. Generally the help is extended for children with disabilities. Medication is given monthly to two Hermanos Mayores and three receive scholarships so they can continue with their studies. We currently have three older brothers who have joined our team and are part of our staff.

Thank You On behalf of all our children and staff, we would like to thank you for your continued, invaluable support to our home. No matter what your contribution is, the evidence of the positive change in our children’s lives is something we witness daily. Blessings to you and NPH El Salvador 2012 31 your families for all you do for NPH.

dominican republic Dear Friends and Family, With our ten year anniversary quickly approaching, I find myself reflecting prayerfully on our past decade as a home in the DR. We have faced many challenges and overcome every single one of them as a family. We intend to continue providing for our children to the best of our ability for many years to come despite any new challenges that may come our way.

With everything that this year has been, it is the little moments that mean the most: sending John and Manuel to their first day of school Kieran Rigney with children from NPH DR. ever at the ages of six and nine; Saúl learning how to speak; and the smiles of our eight girls who celebrated their quinceañeras this year. But throughout the many moments that make me appreciate life and remind me why I am here, it is also those monumental moments that make an impact.

During the second half of this year we accepted nearly 20 new children. We are happy that our family is growing and we will strive to do our very best to not turn down a child in need.

Education In June, our entire eighth grade class graduated. These 15 students proudly wore their caps and gowns and celebrated their educational accomplishments with the entire family. This is our fourth year in a row with 100% of the eighth graders passing their national exams. In addition to this accomplishment, we now offer 9th and 10th grade at our on-site NPH school. In the upcoming years we hope to offer all grades at our school.

In July, we celebrated the high school graduation of our first female students. Mireya and Débora graduated with their peers from the nearby high school in San Pedro de Macorís and afterwards celebrated with their friends and family from NPH. They are both now in their Year of Service. Mireya is working as Activities Coordinator and Débora has taken on several roles in the NPH school, principally as librarian. Both young ladies have big plans for university, and we plan on supporting them as much as we can so they may achieve their goals.

32 NPH Dominican Republic 2012

This year, I am proud to announce, that our first two pequeñas graduated from high school. We are extremely proud of Débora and Mireya for achieving this goal and keeping up their high standards during their Year of Service. They both have big dreams, and I cannot wait to see where their dreams take them.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who helps keep our home going. We are fortunate to have a great team of employees, teachers and caregivers who provide our children with the love they need. Five of our international volunteers even extended their year-long commitment an additional year, and I take that as a sign that they have their whole heart in what they’re doing which is exactly what the home needs. I would like to especially thank our local board for their hard work they put forth towards the home this year. Furthermore, I would like to sincerely thank our donors, sponsors and longtime supporters for their constant support to the home. You are all a part of the greater NPH Dominican Republic family, and I cannot thank you enough.

Kieran Rigney National Director, NPH Dominican Republic

Graduates 2: High School 15: Primary 3: Kindergarten

4: Year of Service Youth 18: Volunteers 28: Confirmations 2,152: Outreach recipients

Children enjoying the library in their home.

Home Life Thanks to the Santos family and extremely generous donations from Spain, each of our twelve children’s houses now has a minilibrary for the children to use. Now, each house has over one hundred books in Spanish aimed at the age and interest of each house. The children really enjoy reading and are able to discover the joy of reading on their own terms with their new mini-libraries.

In the summer we upgraded our water purifying system, installed a new water pump and educated our children on the importance of conservation and clean water. Thanks to a special donation by one of our longtime supporters, this project was made possible. A company performed different tests and analyses to determine the status of our water and make recommendations to dramatically improve the quality. Due to the addition of new equipment to add chlorine, our water filtration system and procedures for filling the water bottles has improved dramatically, and we now provide our children with the cleanest water possible.

In February, for the first time, our home hosted the NPH International Family Weekend. Event Coordinator and longtime NPH supporter, Katherine Harig, and her team organized an incredible week of activities for sponsors, staff and supporters. Our visitors experienced the culture of the Dominican Republic, the home and most importantly, got to meet and spend time with our children.

Casa Santa Maria, our home for cancer patients from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is officially an NPH DR program and completely self-funded. We continued to provide the opportunity for patients to stay at our home with their parent while they receive radiation therapy in the capital. Throughout the year, ten children lived in Casa Santa Maria. This program would not be possible without the support and cooperation of NPH St. Damien Pediatric Hospital, Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis, TN. In late January we completed the construction of our new multipurpose center, Salon Familiar Gabriella. We now frequently use this building for family dinners, performances, and celebrations as well as on rainy days when we need a space for activities.

Outreach Our children have learned a lot by participating in the various outreach activities we sponsor in nearby communities. This past Christmas we celebrated the season of giving by visiting four nearby communities to distribute 300 food packages to families in need and play games with the children. Also, during Holy Week we visited six communities to serve sweet beans, a traditional Dominican dish at Easter, and play games. Over 500 people enjoyed the traditional dish, and these outreach excursions were planned and executed by members of our leadership group.

Two medical brigades stayed at our NPH home while assisting with needs in nearby communities. In April, a medical group from the University of Arizona visited five communities and saw patients for problems as small as parasites to as large as pesticide poisoning. A medical group from Nova Scotia, Canada, visited various urban communities in Santo Domingo to see patients with varying health issues. In total, these medical brigades served well over 1,000 people.

We added a new outreach activity this year that was led by volunteers, NPH children and young leaders in the participating bateyes. This summer, two volunteers ran a once-a-week day camp for nearly 50 children in a nearby community called Batey La Varsa. Every Wednesday, the two volunteers and five children from NPH did team-building games, races and Community outreach in the Batey. other activities with the kids. Each day of camp ended with cold juice and a story for all the participants. We hope to make this an annual activity.

This year 78 external students, many from the nearby Batey’s, are enrolled in our on-site NPH school. For most of these children, particularly the ones who can’t walk home for lunch, we provide lunch every day. Additionally, all of our external students have access to NPH medical care.

NPH Dominican Republic 2012

33

Goals and plans 2013 This January marks the tenth anniversary of our home in the Dominican Republic. We are very excited to reach this memorable mark, and we pray that the next ten years will be as successful. We will celebrate this joyous day with all of our children, staff, volunteers and supporters who have generously given their time and love to the home over the past decade.

With the current budget crisis, we are working hard to find local fundraising opportunities. This effort not only involves our staff and volunteers, but also gives our children the opportunity to receive visitors and build relationships with nearby businesses, schools and organizations.

For over a year now, we have been in the process of constructing our new special needs house, and thanks to a generous donation and the support of the Marcos Simoncelli Foundation, we have nearly finished Casa San Marcos. The home is built to accommodate 24 special needs children and is equipped with rooms for speech, occupational, physical and art therapy. We are expecting to complete construction in early 2013.

In the classroom.

34 NPH Dominican Republic 2012

We are still looking for funds and support to finish the upper floor of our secondary school, with the dream that in two years we will support all grades at our on-site NPH school. Additionally, once construction is complete, we will need to supply each classroom and hire teachers.

Casa San Marcos, Special Needs House

We also hope to be able to set up our internet lab this upcoming year. Thanks to several donations we nearly have all of the necessary equipment to complete this project and provide a space for our children to have computer access. This will be very beneficial for our children to complete assignments and do research.

Thank You None of the amazing things that have happened this year would have been possible without the unconditional love and support from people around the world. We would like to extend a thank you to our local supporters including CESPM for continuing to donate electricity to the home, the International Women’s Club for their sponsorship efforts and additional donations, the Orange Foundation for the generous donation of backpacks and notebooks, Club Naco and the Consular Corps for allowing us to host another event in October, the Brugal Foundation, Comedores Económicos, Mediterranean Shipping Company and CEMEX. Internationally, we want to offer our deepest gratitude to the Marcos Simoncelli Foundation for their support with Casa San Marcos, our new special needs house. We also want to thank Kindermissionswerk, St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Virginia, the Krafft family and J&J’s Kids International. Last, but certainly not least, we want to thank our sponsors.

It is due to your care and love for our children that we are able to function daily. Your kind words to our children Godparent visiting the home. keep their spirits up and for the many of you who have visited, the memories created at the home are sure to last a lifetime for our children. We are blessed to have each and every one of you in our lives, and we thank God for the differences you are making for our pequeños.

peru Dear Friends, When we began the year 2012, we thought that it would be another year full of activities, accomplishments, visitors and surprises with all of our children, but as the months passed by we had to tighten our belts in order to meet the most basic needs of our family of almost 100 children. Even Alfredo Hernadez, National Director. at the end of the year we had a significant budget cut that drove us to be creative in trying to meet our obligations to our providers and employees but above all to our children. Nevertheless, I want to share with you some of the best moments we had throughout the year with our children.

We commenced the year by living on our new property with six homes and the seven prefabricated rooms which serve the various programs in our home, and we ended the year with one more house built for the boys which was much needed, as well as the volunteer and the National Director homes. We also completed the sidewalks around all seven homes which were essential to keep the mud

Home Life This year we could finally enjoy life at our own property in San Vicente de Cañete with all its comfort and facilities. Now we are closer to universities, the local hospital, vendors and the capital Lima, where we have to travel frequently for legal and commercial issues. The move helped to significantly reduce costs for transportation and obviously eliminated rent payments. With the growth of our property, the construction of new houses and the move of the office, we now have everything centralized which is an important change and relief.

The year 2012 was not only successful, but also full of happy moments and many celebrations and visits. We celebrated Easter with religious ceremonies and games, as well as Godparents’ Day (an important and special day dedicated to all the godparents around the world who support our children). We commemorated our 8th anniversary and celebrated the Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation of 56 children. The year´s celebrations ended with a contemplative Christmas Eve and a big and joyful New Year´s party.

outside of the homes especially during the winter time. In addition, more than 150 trees were planted and we saw an increase in green areas all around the children’s homes, much to our delight.

We also had a busy school year with four little ones graduating from kindergarten, two children from primary school and three from secondary school. I am also proud to tell you that three more of our teenagers are heading to university in 2013. We want to make sure that each one of them will have a better future.

We also celebrated our eighth anniversary during the first days of December. All the employees and volunteers participated to make this a special day for the children with many different games and a beautiful Mass celebrated on our property by one of the local priests. We also had a memorable event in the local cathedral of Cañete, where more than 50 of our children received the sacraments of Baptism, First Communion and Confirmation.

We are all very grateful in our Peruvian family to all of you for your constant support.

Alfredo Hernandez National Director, NPH Peru

Graduates 3: High School 2: Primary 4: Kindergarten 3: Year of Service Youth 5: University Students 5: Volunteers 66: Baptisms and Confirmations

NPH Peru 2012

35

Children enjoying the new sidewalks.

In the course of this year, we welcomed and spent beautiful moments with Father Phil Cleary, the President of NPH International; our friends from Canada and New Zealand; American students from Chicago; members from the Family and Medical Services Team; the MyGoodShop Coordinator; many godparents and other friends. We are always very happy about any visit because it means a lot to our children who realize that there are many people who care about them and our home.

Education This year we were very proud to have three more university students, one being our first female university student. We now have five university students who are very responsible young adults and a big support to our family as they work together with the Big brother helping as a caregiver. caregivers in childcare. Next year we will have three additional university students that are currently about to finish a very successful Year of Service. As our children attend a local community school, we can´t always make improvements in terms of education which is one of our biggest concerns. Nevertheless almost all of our caregivers are teachers and therefore great assets to our home as they can help our children more professionally. In addition, we signed an agreement with a private pedagogical institute where students that are about to graduate in Pedagogical Science complete their obligatory university internship at NPH Peru. The students provide extra tutoring to our children daily with personalized attention. Our children have plenty of difficulties and need all the attention and support that we can provide them in order to improve.

Healthcare In the crucial area of healthcare we made huge improvements and changes. First, all of our children have received vaccines against Tetanus, Hepatitis A and B. We also had a general medical checkup 36

NPH Peru 2012

made by the Community Health Center from our town. Thanks to a generous donation from NPH New Zealand, we were finally able to better furnish our clinic so that our children may receive better attention. Another very big step toward better life conditions was the installation of a water treatment system that allows us to drink water from the tap. Thanks to the generosity of a German foundation we were able to purchase this filter system. Our water was contaminated with bacteria and parasites as is the case in most parts of Peru. This put our children´s health at risk. We could not always control if the children, especially the small ones, were drinking tap water. With this significant change we hope to have less dermatology issues and gastrointestinal diseases.

During the first half of the year we unfortunately were not able to continue with an occupational therapy program that had been so successfully developed by our former volunteers. However, thanks to our two new volunteers, in the second half of the year we could finally continue with an integral therapy program once again. One volunteer is an occupational therapist and together with the other who is a psychologist and behaviorist, they developed a program that has been designed for the benefit of all our children. It is a collection of games and exercises that can be used by all the staff members to work with the children on very specific difficulties outside of therapy hours. It allows everybody to help improve our children’s lives. We also welcomed another psychologist to our team as it was a necessity for the well being and progress of our children.

Farms and Gardens As we recently moved to our Harvesting the vegetables. own property, we are still in the process of construction and development. Nevertheless our children were highly motivated to start small gardening projects and planted many beautiful plants in front of their houses. The little boys and girls have their own small

gardens where they planted radishes and beets which they bring to the kitchen for our whole family to consume. They are proud to work and harvest with their own hands and efforts. Also our youngsters showed important self initiative and asked the owners from the farms that surround our property to gather yucca and carrots from them for free. Thanks to their efforts, we were able to get some donations from the local municipality from our city in Cañete. They provide us with rice, tuna, sugar, beans, oil and other items. This was an important support for us throughout the year.

Construction We built our 7th house which accommodates 16 boys. It was a big necessity because each of the two boys´ houses which had been designed for 16 children had to temporarily house 24. We better equipped our houses that lacked basic furniture such as shelves, toilet seats, mirrors, shower curtains, tables and benches. Now the children can study at the tables and eat together in the houses like any other family. Furthermore, we built sidewalks around all of our houses which are of great benefit.

This helps to reduce dust and mud but also allows our toddlers and babies to walk and play on much safer and flatter ground.

The National Director´s house was completed which is a great asset as he now can spend more time with the children and is more available to the staff. Another big improvement was the construction of the volunteers´ house, where all the volunteers live together, have a bit of privacy and all the necessary conveniences to spend a successful year at our home. Now we can even receive more volunteers than in the past. In addition, 150 trees were planted which in the future will give us some shade as it is very sunny and hot throughout the year on the Peruvian coast where our home is located. Some of the trees were purchased by our friends in Canada and others were donated by the municipality of Cañete.

Furthermore our children worked very hard on gardening so that now each house has a small garden.

is not adapted to their needs. Another construction goal is to build public lavatories within the complex. We especially need them for our staff and weekly visitors. We also plan to construct a clinic; currently we just have a provisional one for first aid and general checkups. For emergencies and more significant problems we have to take our children to the local hospital or to Lima. In the same building we will also house the occupational therapy room as well as the psychologists’ office and the social worker’s area. All those sectors are now located in prefabricated buildings and lack space and privacy.

Thank You We would like to thank all our supporters, friends, godparents and donors. In particular we send a special thank you to our Canadian friends that have supported us since our founding and without whom we wouldn’t have been able to build our permanent home.

They continue to come visit us for two months every year and work very hard on construction projects and plenty of other jobs.

Our children love the Canadian volunteers and look forward to seeing them yearly. We also thank the Rotarians from Canada who supported us with a significant donation. Another warm thank you we dedicate to our new friends, the first volunteers from New Zealand who came to support us this year. The New Zealand office helped us with a very generous donation. Also we want to thank particularly the German and the Dutch offices for their constant support over the years. They helped us to accomplish a multitude of important projects. Without all of you our dream of a home wouldn’t have come true. You are the ones who make our labor possible and who contribute to the very shining eyes of our children who feel secure and loved thanks to you.

We have numerous goals that we would like to achieve in 2013.

The highest priority is building a permanent kitchen since the current one is located in a prefabricated building which lacks many necessities for preparing food. The next priority is to build the baby house. Currently our four babies and thirteen toddlers are living in a house which eventually will be another girls´ house and

New water purification system.

Construction of National Director’s house and volunteer house.

1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPH Peru 2012

37

bolivia Dear Family and Friends, The global economic crisis continues to affect everyone in Bolivia. In October of 2012, we began cutting spending in various areas in an effort to finish out the year deficit-free. We have been preparing to operate with an even smaller budget and fewer resources.

Jose Luis Guzman, National Director.

We always try to remember Father Wasson’s spirit of perseverance when such challenges seem too difficult to bear. Father Wasson didn’t always have the funds necessary to provide for his children, but he somehow always overcame material setbacks and continued expanding his ability to help those in need. I think his great faith and work ethic are what carried his mission forward. His passion was magnetic. It seemed to attract all the sponsors and gooddoers without whose help NPH would not exist. I have great faith in our ability to continue following the same path. We will not let anything destroy the magic that has characterized NPH from its very beginnings.

We at NPH Bolivia continue to be deeply grateful for all the people who have helped our family keep growing. We are building new houses, a clinic, and an educational facility thanks to their support.

These new facilities will eventually help us provide an even better quality of life for each and every one of our children. We are very

appreciative of our hard-working employees and volunteers. They also help improve the quality of life of the children who have been entrusted to us by overwhelmed families, the Bolivian government, and of course, God. In May 2012, we took in a newborn child whose mother had abandoned him. I was celebrating my birthday with both my biological family and my NPH family the very same day we received him. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift. This little boy has brought happiness to everyone in the NPH Bolivia family. He receives an incredible amount of affection from the other children, volunteers, and employees. Everyone loves to help take care of him.

Now, our baby is seven months old. Seeing his smile everyday is a constant reminder of NPH´s mission, a mission that calls on us to continue welcoming those in need despite the challenges we face.

It wouldn´t be possible without the help of each and every one of our supporters. Thank you so much to all our sponsors, donors, volunteers, and other good-doers. May God fill your lives with blessings, as you have blessed ours.

With gratitude, José Luís Guzmán National Director, NPH Bolivia

Home Life We at NPH Bolivia are proud of how much we’ve grown. We’ve been required to come up with conscientious, innovative projects aimed at maximizing resources and operational efficiency. Our efforts are beginning to pay off. Although it can be difficult to cope with life’s unanticipated challenges, we try to appreciate the fact that we are gaining new perspectives and skills because of them. This year we cut back on spending for field trips, birthdays, and other activities. Our directors and activities coordinators have been working hard to come up with alternative activities that don´t cost money, like going camping and performing plays.

38 NPH Bolivia 2012

Graduates 3: High School 1: Primary 1: Kindergarten

2: Year of Service Youth 4: University Students 6: Volunteers 28: Confirmations and Communions

Sustainability became one of our major focuses in 2012.

We began laying the groundwork for an environmentally conscious and self-sufficient home by launching our first animal production and sustainable agriculture projects this year. The projects are expected to eventually alleviate increasing food prices. We hope that our newly-launched projects will help facilitate our home´s self-sufficiency.

A generous donation from the Austrian Embassy in Lima allowed us to buy a flock of short-haired sheep adapted to the hot, humid climate we live in. We expect the sheep to multiply and eventually help enrich the menu. The older youth work with the sheep, ensuring that they are all safe in their corral at night, receive appropriate medical attention, and proper nutrition.

The children also began planting a vegetable garden this spring.

A local agricultural expert was hired to help them start the garden from scratch and oversee its success for three years. The children take turns watering and harvesting the garden’s vegetables. Our local expert has been working with the children to make sure they understand how to run the garden not only effectively, but independently. By the end of the three-year plan, the children will have become experts in maintaining and expanding the garden.

As part of our sustainable agriculture project, about 20 promising adolescents take part in special leadership workshops. They learn how to train other NPH children - and surrounding community members - in sustainable agriculture practices. The workshops also focus on business management and organization. Children not only learn how to produce a product, but also effectively market it, manage supply and demand, and invest profits.

Several godparents from other countries came to visit NPH Bolivia in 2012 to spend time with the children they sponsor. We are very fortunate that sponsors are willing to travel to a location as farremoved as Bolivia from origins like the U.S. and France. Our home hosted our first group of volunteers from NPH New Zealand. They painted the interiors of our children’s homes, a much-needed favor.

Next year, we’re looking forward to welcoming visitors from Friends of the Orphans Canada, who will help with the construction of a new volunteer-visitor house.

Three of our older children participated in important NPHI leadership workshops at other NPH homes. Two of them went to Guatemala and one of them went to Honduras; we also sent an older child to an NPH-wide soccer tournament in Nicaragua with our National Director.

Construction In 2012, we finished building our newest residence for the youngest of our children, fondly known as the “Baby House.” We are excited to finish two more significant construction projects in 2013. NPH Belgium provided funding for a building that will house four rooms designated for educational purpose. Construction began in 2012 and is projected to finish in 2013. Many children at NPH Bolivia come from backgrounds that complicated their ability to receive a quality education. A lot of children need extra educational support and

We also launched an important reforestation project that will increase our children´s environmental awareness. Although jungle surrounds us on all sides, the land we actually live on was thoroughly deforested long before we arrived. Virtually no trees remained in the vast area we inhabited at the beginning of 2012. Funding from the Austrian Embassy in Lima allowed us to begin reforesting our compound with native fruit and shade trees.

Children learn about the ecological zone we call home and each species of tree that has been newly planted on our property.

1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

Caring for the sheep.

NPH Bolivia 2012

39

Newly constructed classrooms.

attention in order to function at an academic level that corresponds with their age range. The new educational facility will provide a space for us to give our children that much-needed extra support and attention. We are very appreciative to have it at our fingertips.

We are also looking forward to finishing our new clinic in 2013.

The clinic, financed by Sternstunden e.V. through NPH Germany, will ensure the basic health of not only our own children, but also people living in surrounding villages.

We also hope to build a covered nursery in order to begin growing our own fruit trees and vegetable plants from seeds. We plan to have our children concretely apply the leadership skills they’ve been acquiring in the sustainable agriculture project leadership workshops in 2013. They will be given the responsibility of starting community gardens and organizing gardening workshops in the villages surrounding NPH Bolivia this upcoming year.

Another long-term project we’d like to initiate in 2013 deals with improving our hiring and retention rates. Many prospective caregivers are turned off from working at NPH Bolivia due to its remote location. This complicates our ability to provide consistent, nurturing care for our children. Low employee retention rates have especially affected our adolescent boys. In addition to the inaccessibility of our home, our ten-day work week makes

40

NPH Bolivia 2012

Sustainable garden program.

it difficult for our children’s caregivers to see and care for their own families. We’d like to offer private family housing to alleviate this problem. Our hope Tutoring classroom. is to build several small houses for our overnight employees and their families on our vast property. Living on site would allow caregivers to attend to our children without neglecting their own.

Our children’s sense of security, in turn, will benefit from the vital presence of dependable, unburdened caregivers.

Thank You We’d like to give special thanks to each and every one of our children’s sponsors. Without your strong, steady contributions, we would not be able to take care of our family. We are profoundly grateful that you’ve chosen to invest your hard-earned money in our beautiful children’s well being. We’d also like to acknowledge a couple outstanding contributors from 2012. Thank you to the Austrian Embassy in Lima, and Sternstunden, e.V. for funding important construction projects in 2012. We are very appreciative of the support we receive from exceptionally helpful NPHI offices, including NPH Germany, NPH Austria, NPH Belgium, and NPH New Zealand. Thank you to everyone who supports NPH Bolivia. Without you, we wouldn’t be sharing the amazing accomplishments we’ve achieved, or the hopeful goals we make for the future.

“Bringing hope and dignity into the lives of those who feel hopeless and rejected is one of the most noble and inspiring tasks to which we can dedicate our lives.� Fr. William Wasson

1 NPHI 2009 Annual Report

NPHI 2012 Annual Report 41

Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos™ International Apdo. Postal 333 62000 Cuernavaca, Morelos México Calle Nacional #44 Col. Sta. Maria Ahuacatitlán 62100 Cuernavaca, Morelos México Tel: +52.777.311.4600 info @nph.org www.nph.org

NPH Homes Bolivia info.bo@nph.org

Honduras info.hn@nph.org

Dominican Republic info.do@nph.org

Mexico info.mx@nph.org

El Salvador info.sv@nph.org

Nicaragua info.ni@nph.org

Guatemala info.gt@nph.org

Peru info.pe@nph.org

Haiti info.ht@nph.org

Fundraising Offices In Europe please contact: NPH Europe Tullastr. 66, 76131 Karlsruhe Germany +49.521.208.4726 info@npheurope.org www.nph.org NPH - New Zealand 48 Brighton Road Parnell Auckland, 1052 New Zealand +64-9-948-7336 info@nph-newzealand.org www.nph-newzealand.org

In the United States please contact: Friends of the Orphans - USA 134 North La Salle Street Suite 500 Chicago, IL 60602 USA +1.888.201.8880 +1.312.386.7499 info@friendsus.org www.friendsoftheorphans.org In the Canada please contact: Friends of the Orphans - Canada 470 Industrial Avenue Woodstock, Ontario N4S 7L1 Canada +1.519.421.1992 info@fotocan.org www.fotocan.org

This document was designed and produced by NPH International Communications. NPHI thanks the numerous National Directors, department directors and Communication Officers for their valuable contributions to this production.

Photo Credits: Front cover: Hunter Johnson; Inside Cover: Gabriel Rozycki, Hunter Johnson, Avriel Burlot, Ben Katz, Peggy Parker, Monika Babski, Bailey Bangerter and Elizabeth Caletka.

Inside pages: Elizabeth Caletka and Bailey Bangerter/NPH Mexico; Hunter Johnson and Sally Weigel/ NPH Honduras; Peggy Parker, Liz Lawne, Joanne Schipper, Jim Cocoran/NPH Haiti; Stefano Mietto and Yurena Perdomo Sosa, NPH Nicaragua; Wendy Ramirez, JJ Lizarde, Ben Katz/NPH El Salvador; Liz Guerra and Caitlin Zanoni/NPH Guatemala; Avriel Burlot/NPH Dominican Republic; Monika Babski and Hakimeh Yagootkar/NPH Peru; Claudia Antes-Barisch /NPH Bolivia; Fondazione Francesca Rava NPH Italy; and Monica Gery/NPHI; Jeff Noble of Noble Studios and Douglas Ford Rea. Copy: Fr. Phil Cleary, Miguel Venegas, Reinhart Koehler, Dr. Pilar Silverman, Elizabeth Caletka/NPH Mexico; Hunter Johnson/NPH Honduras; Peggy Parker, Sr. Bonite, Kenson Kaas, Gena Heraty/NPH Haiti; Stefano Mietto/NPH Nicaragua; Brenda Mendez/NPH El Salvador; Liz Guerra/NPH Guatemala; Avriel Burlot/NPH Dominican Republic; Monika Babski/NPH Peru; Claudia Antes-Barisch and Nadia Kalhori/NPH Bolivia.