Peace Corps Online: January 15, 2003 - Hartford Courant: Brazil RPCV Sharon Price founds Children in Villages and Faith Association

January 15, 2003 - Hartford Courant: Brazil RPCV Sharon Price founds Children in Villages and Faith Association

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Headlines: Peace Corps Headlines - 2003: 01 January 2003 Peace Corps Headlines: January 15, 2003 - Hartford Courant: Brazil RPCV Sharon Price founds Children in Villages and Faith Association

Brazil shouldnt pay the money! Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - 4:21 pm [1]

By Admin1 (admin) on Saturday, January 18, 2003 - 10:12 pm: Edit Post

Brazil RPCV Sharon Price founds Children in Villages and Faith Association

Read and comment on this story from the Hartford Courant on Brazil RPCV Sharon Price who founded the Children in Villages and Faith Association and has founded three orphanages in Guatemala and is helping two others get started. One of them contains 55 children abandoned in a filthy facility that the owner walked out of six months ago. Price is also working with a New London adoption agency to get some of the children adopted by Americans. Her dreams, though, are much bigger for the country where she wants to establish "villages" of regular and technical schools, clinics, agricultural endeavors, housing and more. Read the story at:

`Hard Core' Learning Experience*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.

`Hard Core' Learning Experience

Students Gain New Perspective During Trip To Guatemala

January 15, 2003

By CLAUDIA VAN NES, Courant Staff Writer

OLD SAYBROOK -- Emma Putnam was giving her parents a bit of a hard time about the used car they agreed she could have.

The Putnams were doing a whole lot of shopping around or dragging their feet, in their 17-year-old daughter's opinion. "I wanted the car now," Putnam said Tuesday, remembering with some chagrin her behavior this past fall.

But when she returned from an eight-day trip to Guatemala, where she saw children sleeping on bare floors and subsisting on black beans and bread, "that car wasn't nearly as important," Putnam said.

Putnam is one of three Old Saybrook High School seniors who in recent months went to Guatemala, where 90,000 children were left orphans from a decades-long civil war.

More students are planning to make the same trip, which includes no lolling on beaches or visits to museums and monuments, but does promise a heart-wrenching immersion in poverty, starvation, illness and sadness.

The school system is not sponsoring these ventures, but Principal Scott Schoonmaker is strongly in favor. "This is the ultimate in community service. This is hard core," Schoonmaker said Tuesday.

Schoonmaker gave both Putnam and Brittany Peckham permission to miss a week of school in October and will mostly likely do so for other students, because he believes the experience is invaluable.

Putnam saw a flier for the trip in the window of the local Dairy Queen, one of many fliers distributed by Sharon Price, the founder and director of a foundation called Children in Villages and Faith Association. Her organization is almost as threadbare as those she's serving, but it has made great strides in three short, packed years.

Price, who lives in town with her Episcopal priest husband and Christiana, the youngest of their four children and the third local senior who has served in Guatemala, has founded three orphanages and is helping two others get started. One of them contains 55 children abandoned in a filthy facility that the owner walked out of six months ago. Price is also working with a New London adoption agency to get some of the children adopted by Americans.

Her dreams, though, are much bigger for the country where she wants to establish "villages" of regular and technical schools, clinics, agricultural endeavors, housing and more.

Price and her husband were both Peace Corps volunteers and missionaries in Brazil, though Sharon Price came upon Guatemala not as a missionary, but as a student. Four years ago, she took a weeklong submersion course in Spanish there and "fell in love with the country."

Return trips quickly convinced her of the acute need for more orphanages in a country where homeless children are a frequent encounter.

It's mainly been through word of mouth that Price has gotten financial donations as well as donations of children's clothing, furniture, bedding, food and medicine. The volunteers who accompany her hear of the effort in the way Putnam did.

Putnam didn't even know it was her classmate Christiana's mother who was behind the effort until she called the number on the flier, she said.

Because Christiana is Brazilian by birth - she and an older brother were adopted as babies - and has been back to Brazil and seen poverty there, she was probably not as shocked as Putnam and Peckham by what she saw in Guatemala, she figured. Nonetheless, "It was very sad," she said.

Photographs the girls took tell a tragic story of malnourished, abandoned children. One depicts a young boy with a badly painted clown's face juggling fruit.

"He's homeless, and he pretends to be a clown and is trying to get paid for his juggling," explained Christiana Price.

"When you see how ecstatic those children are about one pencil and I sit here in my Abercrombie sweater and Gap jeans," she said.

More Stories on Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Brazil

Read more about Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Brazil at:

Brazil: Brazil RPCV Bob Crites creates "Students helping Street Kids" for South America 19 December 2002

Brazil: Pat Baldi Waak, RPCV/Brazil, Announces Candidacy for Colorado's Fourth Congressional District 30 January 2002

Brazil: History of Peace Corps in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: University of Wisconisn trained volunteers for Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Vignettes from the Peace Corps Brazil 1964 - 1966 23 June 2001

Brazil: The Feira by Norman Weeks - Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil in 1968 23 June 2001

Brazil: Brazil's Media, Peace Corps Round Out Mike Stricklin's Global Experience 23 June 2001

Brazil: Former Peace Corps Volunteer expands Internet knowledge to Brazilians 23 June 2001

Brazil: Dave Canavera and his wife Nancy served in Peace Corps Brazil from 1969 to 1971 23 June 2001

Brazil: Wayne Peterson began his career by serving in the Peace Corps in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Ryland White, Associate Professor - a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Ann Kamman, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil, 1972-1974 23 June 2001

Brazil: Sarah Johnston, PCV in Gambia, was introduced to Peace Corps opportunities by her father, who spent time volunteering in Brazil in the 1960s 23 June 2001

Brazil: Robert B. Crites, Former Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil, founds Students Helping Street Kids International 23 June 2001

Brazil: Lawrence Dantoff - Horticulturist, Peace Corps/Brazil, Colegia de Agricola, Alegre, Esperito Santo, 1976-1978 23 June 2001

Brazil: Patricia Baldi Waak, Director of the National Audubon Society's Population and Habitat Campaign, spent 2 years with the U.S. Peace Corps in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: José Gómez, Executive Assistant to César Chávez, 1973-75 - Peace Corps, Brazil 1968-69 23 June 2001

Brazil: President nominates Ronald P. Wertheim To Be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia - was Peace Corps Director in northeast Brazil from 1966 to 1968 23 June 2001

Brazil: Elise Browning Miller, author of Yoga for Scoliosis - served the Peace Corps in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: William E. Hurwitz, M.D., J.D. - 1973-1975 Medical Director, U.S. Peace Corps, Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Brazil RPCV 1965, Interview: Habits of a Militant Anthropologist 23 June 2001

Brazil: Jim Stallings, Short Story Writer - served in the Peace Corps in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Who is Larry Liberty, Organizational Consultant - joined the Peace Corps in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Dr. Howard Decker, Industrial Art Trainer, worked for two years, 1978-79, with the Peace Corps in Brazil as a consultant at the Escola Technica in Salvador, Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Kaiser doctor Michael J. Chaffin has his hands full - chose his medical career after Peace Corps service in Brazil and has adopted 8 children 23 June 2001

Brazil: Former Brazil Peace Corps Volunteer Michelle DeFayette appointed director of training by the National Association of Community Action Agencies (NACAA) 23 June 2001

Brazil: Venture Capitalist Patricia M. Cloherty spent two years in Brazil as a Peace Corps volunteer advising youths living on small farms 23 June 2001

Brazil: Skya Gardner-Abbate began her career as a medical sociologist serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Real Estate Agent Susan Hill - Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Former Tulsa Mayor Dr. Rodger Randle, now professor of international programs, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Abortion Expert Warren M. Hern, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. - served as a Peace Corps physician in Brazil (1966-68) 23 June 2001

Brazil: Jim Ito-Adler was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil for two years before returning to study for a Ph.D. in social anthropology 23 June 2001

Brazil: Actor Peter Lownds, friend of Jack Kerouac, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in northeastern Brazil in the mid-sixties 23 June 2001

Brazil: Artist Tomas Belsky - After Peace Corps Service in Brazil, where I met several naive (unschooled) painters, I felt my own destiny being clarified 23 June 2001

Brazil: Kendall and Neila Furlong were married in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil 23 June 2001

Brazil: Archeologist Dr. Stephanie J. Maloney was a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil and received the Smithsonian Institution Research Field Trip Award (1974-1976) 23 June 2001

Brazil: Peter Mikuliak a Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil, this month begins a one-year term as Church World Service Regional Director for Bosnia-Herzegovina, based in Metkovic, Croatia 23 June 2001

Brazil: Carol Lloyd - Peace Corps volunteer to Brazil 1974-1976 in foods and nutrition program 23 June 2001

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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Brazil; Service; COS - Guatemala

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By Dawn Davis (204.108.16.101) on Friday, June 30, 2006 - 1:55 pm: Edit Post

Hello I am looking for an orphange to work in a as cook and also a childcare assistant. Right now I am living in california and work as a Youth Drug and Alcohol Prevention Director for the Long Beach Health Department. Please contact me if you know of any volunteer postions within America. Thank You

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