Christmas Toy Run for Tots!

As you may well know, every year, we organize a Tot Program designed to bring Christmas out into the streets of Tecate and Tijuana and to give toys to the kids who deserve them (i.e. every kid).

This year went very well. We loaded up our friendly VW bus with toys, engaged Santa to join us, and hit the streets!

A very big "Thank You" to Santa and the Christmas Elves, as well as to everyone who helped assemble toys and make this Christmas Run happen. You've put so many new smiles on children's faces!

 

The Oaxaca Project

Our friend and fellow Gusketeer Beth just told us about this awesome project down in Oaxaca that is the brainchild of her colleague Deborah Miller.

As an EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) practictioner, Deborah works with kids in a hospital cancer wing in Oaxaca to help them tap into their emotions and create a positive frame of mind. She uses teddy bears called Tappy Bears as confidants for the childrens' worries and emotions.

Here are some of her words: "I’ve felt absolute joy, delight, pleasure, peace and pure love as I interact with these children on a daily basis. We have FUN feeling better, while learning how to feel better, learning that it’s ok to feel better, while choosing to feel good and to heal. The peels of laughter that come as we tap, visualize and joke around fill the hospital room with the delight of life. That is pure healing in my eyes."

Beyond helping the individual children in her hospital wing, Deborah has reached out to the doctors and hospital community and his helping to raise awareness about the benefits of practicing EFT: "Although Dr Quero, the head oncologist, has from the very beginning been very open to the work I do with EFT, usually the doctors are a little reserved or skeptical. Even though Dr Quero was observing results in the children and parents it was months before he actually tried EFT with me. When he did try it, he found it very relaxing and refreshing. He recommends that the use of EFT be continued in the hospital and hopes that other hospitals will do the same soon."

How cool! Way to go Deborah. We believe in what you're doing!

Check out her website here for more info: http://www.oaxacaproject.com

Glasses for Mexican Children

I just heard that Yves Behar, a fancy-pants designer and a partner with the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project, is beginning a new project that is surprisingly down-to-earth! It's goal: to provide a solution to the need for glasses among low-income kids in Mexico. Apparently about a half million children entering school down here in Mexico each year need glasses, and few of them get a pair. Even fewer get cool ones...

Fuseproject says: "Currently, the percentage of children in need of lenses at or above .75 correction [...] can be as high as 60-70% in some schools in states like Morelos, Sonora and Chiapas. The average classroom need percentage is 11%. Additionally, the wearing of glasses is looked at as a handicap, this social stigma adds to the resistance to correct the problem," (taken from here).

Behar's group has apparently gotten the manufacturing cost of a pair of these glasses down to 10 bucks.  The glasses come in five styles, three sizes and seven colors and apparently are designed to look cool.  The project, called "Ver Bien para Aprender Mejor", is being co-funded by the Mexican government, Augen Optics, and the non-profit created for this program. Their aim is to produce and give out 300,000 pairs of glasses a year.

The idea is that school children will receive eye exams from their local optometrist, or from a visiting one if none is available, and their prescriptions will be sent off to create the glasses, which should arrive back to the children within a few weeks.  The coolest part is the design of the glasses, which pop apart hot dog-style when you need to replace the lenses with a new prescription. Behar talks a lot about valuable design: "What I'm always trying to demonstrate is that you can get high-quality design at a low price point when a low price is just one of the criteria you are using in creating the design," (taken from here). He's an interesting guy!

Learn more about the project here.

Since I mentioned the OLPC project in passing, I'm going to indulge and include it in today's post! If you've done some traveling/volunteering around Latin America, you may have run across one of the signature little green laptops that OLPC distributes (at left).

Their mission: "To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning." Yeah! Joyful, self-empowered learning is something we can all get behind, right?

The OLPC Mexico wiki is a good source of info on what's happening with the program within Mexico. Check it out! Contribute or just feel good about it!