Advancement Program for Underprivileged Mothers

Each week we host free classes for about 60 mothers in the area to educate them in implementing new approaches with their families in a variety of areas. While the ladies have a class, their children play games, and we have a team of young people volunteers who entertain the children, make balloons animals for them, or have a flannel graph, and they learn to sing a song, which they sing for their parents at the end of the class.

Barbara (bottom left) registering each new mother who begins our advancement program.	Elaina and Elizabeth teaching the children while their mothers are having classes.
Woolworth here in Morelia donated toys and equipment which we use to keep the children occupied.	The kids are amazed when they first see such toys, that they just stand there and stare. We have to encourage them that it's OK to play with them.
Young girl learning some music basics.	Kids performing a song for their mothers.

Many of our activities focus on things that these ladies haven’t done before. For example, many have rarely been part of a group activity, had an opportunity to express their ideas, been served coffee and cake, nor their children. Thus we start each class with “conversation starters”, asking the ladies how things were that month, who had birthdays, who have new grandchildren, etc. They seem to really like this part and it helps them to gain self-respect and an appreciation of the things that happen in their lives.

Enjoying a sing along, an activity they have not experienced before.

Being served coffee and cake, including the art of serving guests.

We attempt to implement innovative ways for the mothers to participate, including games that allow them to review the material that we have covered in previous classes, as well as a devotional class complementary to the topic being addressed. (For example if the topic is giving, we read devotional material on the subject of the blessings of giving and also encourage the ladies that everyone has something they can give and share with others. The next month we ask the ladies how they applied the classes from the time before.)

As far as the curriculum covered, a basic beginning lesson that we introduce all newcomers to is a class on cleanliness, as well as actually requiring them and their children to be clean when they attend the classes.

In Cleanliness class, Eugenia demonstrating on Timmy how to keep children clean.

Most of these ladies don’t read or write well, so we modified hand-outs to include artwork and quotes.

Then one week we have a team of dentists give the mothers classes on tooth care. The dentists also put fluoride drops on their children’s teeth, and give each child a toothbrush and show them how to properly use it.

Dentists instructing how to care for children’s teeth, and then later applying fluoride drops on each child’s teeth and presenting each with a tooth brush and teaching them how to use it.

Another week we draw on material from a Reader’s Digest book “Back to the Basics,” on how to use natural herbs and natural cosmetics. After the class we have a competition, dividing the class in half and asking questions and each team getting points for correct answers.

At the end of each weekly session we have a food distribution program, allowing each mother to take home a bag loads of basic food commodities, donated by local businesses. The pre-prepared food bags include fruit, vegetables, meat, butter or cheese, pastries, bread, and sometimes clothes.

Carmen (left) lining up women for their food box.

Michael handing out food mothers receive regularly.

Silvia, a Sweet Success Story

Silvia is a lady in her 40’s who was abandoned by her husband, and lives alone in a very small one-room cement block building with her 16 yr. old mentally retarded son. When we first met Silvia, she was all withered up after being bedridden for 5 years with arthritis. (As a child she had a strep infection that wasn’t cared for, and she developed a severe case of arthritis.) Silvia couldn’t sit up even long enough to bathe, her arms were twisted into her chest and she couldn’t extend them because of the pain. Now she is able to sit up for hours, crochets and also uses her arms to do things like wash her dishes that her son brings to the side of her bed.

We had been asked by a friend to visit Silvia and have been doing so weekly for some time now. We take her and her son food, have prayed for her healing, as well as reading to her from devotional material. Now we are undertaking renovating Silvia's house and getting her sufficient furniture. We have also located a doctor who is experimenting with a treatment for arthritis and who will be donating treatment for Silvia.

After being bedridden for 5 years, Silvia has regained the use of her hands and is able to crochet the beautiful doily you see in the photo. We are helping her sell her doilies to bring her some income.