Your Glimpsers had a really exciting day today! We went to Parque Maldonado so that we could spend time with the Manitos Trabajadoras, children who are as young as five that work to sell candies and shine shoes to earn money for their education. The students had the opportunity to meet many of the kids and even had the chance to go around the park with them and sell as if we were in their shoes. We realized how much people who are more obviously struggling for money are ignored by others on the street. While selling with the children, we received a few turned heads and some quick nos, but the kids we worked with didn’t get discouraged and kept seeking out other people. This broke our hearts as we realized how it feels to be the beggar who we typically ignore on the streets of Chicago. In the states, we are often told to walk past them and avoid discussions, as they are either dangerous or will not use the money properly. But working with the little kids really inspired us to extend our hearts to them. They never give up on their dreams of achieving amazing things, and they refuse to let a denied sale bring them down. These beautiful kids constantly smiled and showed their love for us the minute we arrived at the park, an experience that melted our hearts and made us realize that sometimes all a person needs is someone who will treat them like the good people they are. Even though it was an emotional day, we all tried to stay as positive as the kids and keep each other’s spirits up. We are extremely proud of how much empathy and compassion that the Global Glimpsers showed to both one another as well as to the Manitos Trabajadoras. Although there was a lot of rain and gloom today, the kids made us happy when the skies were grey. With them, nothing could take our sunshine away. Okay?

our day with Manitos Trabajadoras

Bryan with friend

Micaela with friend

Asmahun with friend

Sam with friend

Tania with friend

joining hands with Manitos

After we returned to the hotel, we reflected on our morning and jumped right into our second Community Action Project (CAP) seminar. Today, we focused on the design aspect of our project. Collectively, the Glimpsers gathered donations that totaled to $935, enough to finish all of the five different projects that the farm needed. We simplified the projects into three main areas: building a guinea pig house, painting a mural, and building a fence around the land. We were really excited to hear that we were able to provide so much help to the Carlos Garbay farm. As a team, we created four different aspects of contribution: manual labor, accounting, translation, and artistic design. Each of the three projects has people from each of these four groups so that all of the different goals have knowledge in all of the steps that it takes to sustain our community action. We are extremely grateful for all the family and friends who contributed money to our project by giving us funds to donate directly to our efforts. All of the extra money that isn’t budgeted will be donated to one of the organizations that is partnered with Global Glimpse which we will choose on our last day. A big thank you again for all of the love from our parents on the blog; it’s really great to know that we have so much support from our families who are miles away!

preparing for CAP presentation

Juan Carlos (PC) helps the group with research for CAP presentation

Love,

Hammie and Jules