Hi, my name is Hugo Chen. I am the leader of Day 10, Poverty Day. I am honored to be the leader of today, and I am thankful for this program for giving me a chance to be a leader.

One of the two major events that happened today was visiting Vida Para Niños, which is a school and home for youths that are at risk. First, we met up with Wilkins, the director of the school. He talked about  his relationship with the school and showed us around the childrens’ homes. We saw that the kids are living in a good and stable environment. After that, Wilkins took our group on a tour of the school. We learned that the school is well equipped with a library, cafeteria, playground, dental clinic, and more. In the meantime we had a chance to play with the kids during their recess. After all the kids were back to class, Wilkins told us about the history of Vida Para Niños and how this program was founded and now funded. He even had two of the kids share their life story with us, which was very impactful and meaningful. Everyone in our group was feeling grateful and appreciative because of what Wilkins and Vida Para Niños has done for the youths, the community, and the world.

In the afternoon, we visited the Constanza Dump, which was another very impactful experience. We first arrived there and were shocked by what we saw; flies everywhere, dogs running around eating trash, and smoke coming out of the ground on the edge of the dump. We met up with the leader of the community, Jose Miguel, who lives and works at the dump. Then we split up into small groups and interviewed the workers there. Our group asked a lot of insightful questions about the workers’ lives and living situation, and the answers we got were shocking. For example, they burn all of Constanza’s trash, and the fire has not gone out for 23 years since the dump opened. The workers there have no choice other than working and living there because there is no suitable job opportunity other than the dump. The fire keeps burning because under the surface, the temperature is so hot and is fed by the methane gas released by the trash. Even though we were not able to fly kites as we had planned because of the rain, or interact with more people who live and work there, we were still grateful to be there.

We learned and experienced a lot today. We all felt very lucky to be living in the US. And we truly realized that poverty is one of the biggest global issues of today’s world.

Some photos from our visit to Vida Para Niños: