About HIJAS

According to Unicef, 43.4% of Guatemalan children are chronically malnourished, and the rate is up to 80% among indigenous children. (Source) Recognizing this need, the HEAR Foundation made initial contact with Casa Hogar de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios in Jalapa City, Guatemala, in 2006. Casa Hogar is a girls’ home for orphans and children in need run by a branch of the Order of Marta y Maria. In Jalapa City they serve approximately 100 girls from birth to around 20 years of age, providing housing, food, and necessary supplies to attend school. The young women also receive intermittent government food rations and preventative care measures such as vaccines, but otherwise are funded entirely by private donors. They do not receive financial support from the Catholic Church.

In 2006, HEAR began working with the home’s head, Madre Claudia, to identify areas of intervention and establish a common vision for the future of the home. The home had dangerous infrastructure, an intermittent and severely insufficient food supply, and lack of the most basic provisions to maintain the girls in schooling and home life. In an initial health assessment, virtually every girl at Casa Hogar showed signs of chronic malnutrition such as hair loss, anemia, and a variety of skin problems. Since then, HEAR has constructed a second story, dug a well for clean, consistent water, and fixed the faulty septic system. We have built a fully functioning farm under the guidance of a farm manager that is currently turned over to the home’s residents for long-term use. In 2015, HEAR built a chicken coop on the home’s grounds that are about to be inhabited by 200 chickens. Over the past years, we have provided thousands of pounds of food for the girls’ immediate needs, and we are happy to report that the difference is visible. The girls’ health is hugely improved, as has their spirit.

HEAR’s ultimate goal is to lead the home to food independence and provide the girls with the skills they need to make it on their own once they leave Casa Hogar. We want to teach the home’s residents and caretakers the basic skills needed to grow and maintain a kitchen garden, maintain chickens and other animals as a food source. Along the way, we hope to help provide the basic needs of life: health, education, and a smile.