Monday, February 23, 2009

Hands In Service Projects Part 3

Hands In Service helped a woman named Nelly realize her dream of opening a school for the disabled. She accepts students that the other schools won't. Her students are mostly deaf or have Downs Syndrome.

Nelly fell out of a tree when she was twelve and became a paraplegic, and her school wouldn't take her back since she was in a wheel chair.

In 1997, Nelly and her husband Nelson had opened a school in her home, and she realized she needed more space to teach all of the students. In 2005 Hands In Service started building classrooms and dorms for the school. Today, the school is named CasAyuda, which translates to 'helping house".

This is a picture of one of our team members Eric in the blue, Suzanne, Nelson, Michelle, and Nelly in the front.

Nelly has different class rooms for different subjects. The goal of CasAyuda is to provide the students with life skills that they are capable of doing that will make them money.

This is their cosmetology room, where the deaf girls learn to cut and style hair.


They also sell their paintings and pottery.




This was the first project that Suzanne worked on. She helped build these dorms for the girls who attend the school. Nelly gets a lot of students from the hills and other places that are quite a ways away since this is the only school in Honduras that accepts challenged students. Since the students come from so far away Nelly allows them to stay in the dorms free of charge and she also feeds them for the week for free. A lot of the students can't afford to pay the tuition, so Nelly charges them on a pay scale depending what they are able to pay, and parents of other students who are able to help out, will always give more than their share of tuition to help the others.



While we were visiting the school, we had a light rain, and a double rainbow formed over the school, it was pretty cool.
You can also the building on the left in this picture is under construction. They are adding a second floor. The entire school continues to grow. It gives hope to many families in Honduras.

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