ORFANATO DE SAN JUAN COSALA

By Rotarian John Powell

  

Old Kitchen

It was in the early 1950’s that a young Catholic priest (Padre Adalberto Macias Llmas) working in the San Juan Cosala area recognized the need for a facility for young people  in that area on the north shore of Lake Chapala about 60 km south of the city of Guadalajara in the State of Jalisco, Mexico.

Padre Macias approached the Catholic Church with the idea of building a facility for young people in the village of San Juan de Cosala.  The Church approved the idea but told the Padre they were not in a position to provide financial support for his project so Padre Macias commenced the construction of his facility with support from local businesses and residents. The Padre now has a facility that includes a huge piece of land, a Church, a kitchen with attached dining room, a high school complex of four buildings, a junior high school, four large dormitories to house the children and an office area which includes his living accommodations.  Because the schools are located on private property the Mexican Government considers them to be private schools so the Padre is responsible for the salaries of the teachers and all other school related expenses.

Kitchen Remodeled

Although the facility is often referred to as the “Orfanato de San Juan Cosala” it is not an orphanage in the true sense of the word as not all the children living there are orphans.  Some of the children come from large families in the surrounding villages who are unable to provide and education and other necessities for all their children and others come from small villages in the mountains where there are no Junior High or High schools.  Many of the children live at the facility only during the school year the return to their families during the school vacation periods.  The population at the facility fluctuates between 80 and 150 children depending on the time of year.  The facilities population is made up of both boys and girls ages about ten to their late teens.

In 2004, at the invitation of the Padre, Club Rotario Zapopan Sur became involved in projects at the facility.  Over the next three years, with assistance from the Rotary Club of Willets, CA and the Rotary Foundation, the club replaced all the old kitchen equipment, purchased mattresses for all the children’s beds and installed a solar power system on the roof of the kitchen which provides all the electric power needs for the kitchen and yard lighting for the area surrounding the kitchen.

My wife and I became involved with the facility in 2006 after joining Club Rotario Zapopan Sur.  We vacationed in Canada for two months that summer and during that time visited ten Canadian Rotary Clubs promoting assistance to the Padre’s facility and looking for support to start a scholarship program ( Programa de Becas) for poor children in the Guadalajara area.  Of the ten clubs we visited eight provided financial assistance for the orphanage and three of those are also sponsoring students in the new scholarship program.

Old Dining Area

When we returned to Guadalajara we spoke to the Padre and told him about our Rotary visits and expected we may have questions from some of the Rotary clubs about his requirements for money.  He told us his first priority for a new project would be a dining room adjacent to the kitchen as, at the time, the children were carrying hot, heavy pots of food about two hundred meters and up two flights of stairs to a study area were they would eat their meals.  We received cost estimates from two architects who had done work for the Padre in the past.  The quotes came in at about $27,000 US so the Padres said “OK let’s get started”.  My immediate response was “just a minute Padre –there MIGHT be money coming but we don’t know how much or when”.  The Padre’s response was “everything I have done here has been done on PRAYER and CREDIT and there has never been a problem – WE START CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW DINING ROOM MONDAY”.  Construction started Monday and there was only one delay in the work for about a month when the Padre’s creditors insisted on seeing some money before they would extend any more credit.  Once construction commenced Club Rotario Zapopan Sur contributed $20,000 pesos (approximately $2,000 US) of seed money.

About six months later money started coming in from the Canadian Rotary clubs we had spoken to and we were doing quite well financing the dining room project until September 12, 2007 when disaster struck.  The rainy season in this part of Mexico runs from May to October and in September we had three days of unusually heavy rains which resulted in a mudslide coming down the mountain toward the town of San Juan Cosala between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning.  The Padre felt something was wrong so he looked out and saw a river of mud and water flowing down the mountain toward his facility.  He immediately woke all his children and managed to get them all off the property with only the clothes they wore to bed – fortunately there were no injuries.  However, the children lost everything they had – clothing, shoes, mattresses, bedding, books and any other personal belongings they may have had.  There was some structural damage to some of the building but the new dining room escaped damage.  The children spent some time sleeping in school auditoriums until they were able to return home.  Some of the Rotary clubs donating money to the construction of the dining room redirected their funds to repair of mudslide damage.  To date we have collected about $16,000 US for the construction of the new dining room and just over $5,000 US for damage relief from the mud slide.

 

Mealtime in new dining room funded by Rotary

Construction of the new dining room is almost complete but we still need to purchase and install two sinks so the children can wash their dishes and hands in the dining room. Glass has to be installed in the windows and the building has to be painted.  There are, of course, still many of the associated bills that have to be paid.

In January of 2008 two members of the Kindersley, SK Rotary Club visited us and we took them to San Juan Cosala to meet the Padre and to visit his facility.  They were impressed/moved by what they saw but were concerned with the meal they saw three of the girls preparing.  This was the main meal of the day and the girls had six chickens they were cleaning to be put in a large soup pot meant to feed 110 children.  When they returned home they reported their experience to their Club and one of the Kindersley members came up with the idea of the “3-F” program – Five dollars on the Fifth of the month for Food.  The Club is promoting the program among businesses in the town of Kindersley – for five dollars on the fifth of the month employees are able to report to work in casual dress.  The first five months of the program has raised $1,320 Can. and the Padre understands this money can be used only to supplement the diet of the children with more meat or chicken.

This past summer we visited Canada again and did another “Rotary Tour”.  This year we visited fourteen Rotary clubs promoting support for the Padre’s facility in San Juan Cosala.  There was a great deal of interest in our presentation and we expect the monetary response to the 2008 tour will exceed that of the 2006 tour.  During our 2006 tour Rotarians from one of the clubs donated $122 – this year Rotarians donated $1,744 at the meetings and all the Clubs are considering the Padre’s facility as part of their World Community Service programs.

Padre Macias is now in his mid 80’s and still going strong.  A younger cousin, also a Catholic Priest, has been groomed to take over the Padre’s duties once he is no longer able to continue administering the facility on his own. 

The Padre’s “wish list” for future projects (once the new dining room has been paid for) includes:

• A new computer room – Hewlett-Packard has volunteered to donate twenty new computers to the facility but before the computers can be delivered the Padre must provide a safe secure location in which to house them.

• Solar panels for the roofs of two of the dormitories to heat the water for the children’s showers.

• Construct a “fish pond” on the property in which to raise fish to feed the children.  He would like to raise enough fish to be able to sell some to the surrounding villages to raise some money for his facility.

• He would like to be able to cultivate some land to grow vegetables and fruit.

• Build a retaining wall around his water storage tanks.