Progress in Caraballo

I recently spent a few days doing some work at the school that we have in Caraballo (this is the school focused mainly on dealing with Haitian immigrants that aren't allowed to go to public school, thus won't be educated if we don't do it). Thanks to some generous donations, construction was recently completed on a new cafeteria/kitchen. This new building allows for the opening of a new classroom for new kids because the kitchen had been temporarily placed in a classroom. This might seem like a happy, yet small accomplishment, to finish this building project, but the ramifications are HUGE. Like I mentioned, if we don't put these kids in school, they don't go to school, they continue living a life mostly dependent on others to provide for them and have little if any chance to escape from the cycle of poverty they've grown up in. So, we were able open a new classroom, bringing in about 25 new pre-schoolers, providing hope to 25 little lives that had none before.
While the day was happy and festive, it was also sad. As the new kids came, there were numerous mothers with their children that wanted to enter the school as well, there was space for 25, but there are many more in that age group that live in the area. Turning these kids away is no small task. We know, and their parents know, that if they don't get into the school within a few years, it will be too late, they simply won't go to school. They won't learn to read or do math, they will be almost unemployable for the rest of their lives, except for basic manual labor jobs that don't pay enough to feed one person, much less an entire family.
The situation in this area is dire, it's depressing, but there's joy to be found. 25 kids are now able to say that they are in school, 25 more mouths will receive a free lunch, 25 more lives have been given a chance.

I will add some pictures of the first day in the new cafeteria--see above.