Academics, mentorship and soap-making continue through COVID-19!

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the way of life, the young ladies at Casa Ester have not allowed it to impede their education, their work, or their entrepreneurship efforts. Over the last few months, the young ladies have shifted to continuing their academic courses online.

The internal Estercitas program has also helped them continue with their educational and special needs programs. As jobs in the local community are now scarce due to the  COVID-19 crisis, most of the young women now go to Kids Alive’s Oasis Home to work in the kitchen and nursery. House moms Marielos and July, both pre-school teachers by profession, now primarily care for Jacobo*, the son of one of our Casa Ester residents, who is attending preschool. Lately, Jacobo has begun to gain a spiritual understanding of the weight of this pandemic in our country and across the world. 

While our girls are making steady progress, so are our mentors and friends of the ministry who have continued to reach out to disciple them via video calls. Many mentors have even brought special tokens of encouragement and left them at the front door of their mentees. The therapeutic aftercare program continues almost as normal. We also continue to serve the 17-year-old girls at Oasis who are in our pre-independence program.  

Recently we have invested in the purchase of soap molds and new professional packaging materials to enhance the marketing appeal of the artisanal hand-made soap made by the Estercitas. A local photographer volunteered to take photos of our soap product line with the support of our friend Paola de Alvarado, who also created advertising graphics with price and descriptions of the new line of soaps.  

We have had great support from friends of the ministry like Big Brands, a high-end boutique shoe store in Guatemala City, who have invited us to sell our soap line at their store. The young ladies in our program have been very motivated by all the support they have received. It’s boosted their entrepreneurship drive to create even more diversified high-end products to sell, and these include decoupage bottles and hand-painted pieces of art.

We have experienced some difficult challenges over the past few months, but above all, we have witnessed the mercy and presence of God at Casa Ester in big ways.  

Waleska Camposeco, Coordinator of Independence Program, Casa Ester

Click on an image below to enlarge and read captions

Bonfires are a great way to end and transition out of a long week.

A young lady from the Estercitas program works on a sewing project.

Interactive devotional time and an evening of games help to maintain spiritual and emotional growth at Casa Ester.

The joy of learning and sharing! The young ladies share their gifts, skills, expertise, and trade with each other.

Waleska, Coordinator of the Independence Program, captures a selfie with a girl in the pre-independence program during the girl’s send-off. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, some courts continue to convene and make decisions for children to return to their families or go to a foster family.

Jacobo* loves school and enjoys learning with his friends. Doing all of his schoolwork from home has been a difficult transition, but he continues to excel. (*name changed)

Young ladies create handmade artisanal soap to sell at an upscale boutique store.

We have had great support from friends of the ministry like Big Brands, a high-end boutique shoe store in Guatemala City, who invited us to sell our handmade soaps and products in their store.