Open Letter to SOS Children's Villages in Austria

It is with great sadness and concern that I am writing this letter to you, after it has been brought to my attention that the physical and mental wellbeing, as well as the safety of the children and teenagers at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba are in jeopardy.

By Rikke Søndergaard
Dear Mr. Kutin, I am writing to you to regarding the current situation at the SOS Children’s Village in La Ceiba, on the north coast of Honduras. First, I would like to express my appreciation for SOS Children’s Villages, as an honorable organization working for the well-being of children’s around the world. Your organization is well-known and respected in my native country, Denmark. Although driven by my concern for the children, teenagers and staff at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba, part of my motivation for writing this letter, is also that I do not wish to jeopardize or see the image of the SOS Children’s Villages stained. I understand how important the sponsorship programs are in order to run the many children’s villages around the world.

In 2005, I came to Honduras for the first time, and I volunteered for three months at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba. I was involved in reading sessions, as well as teaching English, handicrafts and basic first aid & fire prevention. I have kept in contact with the village ever since, visiting whenever possible, during the 1½ years in total that I have, so far, spent in Honduras during the years 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010-11.

From August 2010 and until February 2011, as part of my Master’s program in Development and International Relations as Aalborg University, Denmark, I conducted a 6 month non-paid internship with the small American NGO HondurasChildren. I worked as the supervisor of international volunteers, providing different activities -- English, Math, Spanish and Art at different locations, including the SOS Children’s Villages in La Ceiba and Tela, and I also worked as the manager of the Vacation Activity Program, which we ran from November to January, during the public school summer vacation. This program was offered for free to the students of the public school in the village of El Porvenir, as well as to the children and teenagers in the SOS Children’s Villages in La Ceiba and Tela.

Unfortunately these programs were shut down in May by Sra. Maricruz Martinez at the SOS Children’s Villages Honduras national office, informing us that they had changed their policies, wanting the SOS children and teenagers to participate only in community based programs.

Due to this decision, we were informed that no voluntary programs are allowed inside the SOS Children’s Villages anymore. The programs provided the children and teenagers with free extracurricular activities, e.g. the opportunity to learn or improve English language skills, participate in creative projects, learning about other cultures etc. After having observed the benefits of these voluntary programs, both academically and personally for the children and teenagers, I was very sad to see the programs shut down.

From day one, when I first came to the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba, my impression has been that the children and teenagers living there are very fortunate compared to many others in Honduras. Many of the volunteers I have worked with and supervised have told me that prior to their volunteering experience, they had expected to be met by sad environment, since many children come from very difficult situations and have experienced abuse, neglect and abandonment prior to being admitted to a children’s home. I do not know how it is at other orphanages or children’s homes around Honduras, or around the world, but at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba, this was not the case at all. On the contrary, the atmosphere there was a very happy one.

I have always been impressed by these children, and especially the teenagers living at this SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba. It is obvious that they are receiving a solid foundation, based on love, care and mutual respect among children, teenagers, mothers, ‘tias’, the director and other staff. Staff is actually not the correct term, as everyone at the village is like a family.

One thing I really appreciate about the SOS concepts and values is the strive to provide a family for each child and teenager. I am not a professional neither in psychology, nor in child care or education, but this can, by no means, be an easy task, taking into consideration the pasts of many of the children admitted to the children’s homes. However, the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba succeeded in creating this family feeling and environment, and thus also in bringing up loving, caring, responsible and respectful children and teenagers.

Seeing the interaction between the children, the teenagers and the staff, made me very grateful and very proud to be allowed to interact with and help provide extracurricular activities for these children and teenagers. On different occasions, when travelling, studying, working and volunteering in Honduras, I have met people of different ages that grew up at an SOS Children’s Village here in Honduras, all of whom had fond memories of growing in the SOS family.

On one occasion I met a man in his thirties, now a successful company owner in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. He told me he spent his spare time working with boys living in the street, and he had recently started up a small organization to help give these street boys an alternative to living in the street. He told me to pass his greetings on to the woman who used to be his SOS mother, and who now worked at the SOS Children’s Village in La Ceiba, where I volunteered at the time. I was impressed by this man, who had decided to ‘pay it forward’, and when I brought the greeting to the SOS mother at the SOS village here in La Ceiba, it made a deep impression on me, seeing the tears in her eyes, and telling me how proud she was of this man, who she raised for most of his childhood at another SOS Children’s Village in Honduras.

During the 1½ years I have spent in Honduras, and the total of 9 months I have volunteered in and with the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba, I have come to know Olman Flores, who has been the director of the village for the past 13 years, very well. I have now known him for 6 years, and I admire him, both as professional but also very much as a person, and I must admit that he is one of the people in Honduras that I respect the most.

Both as a former volunteer, as a volunteer supervisor and program manager, I have always had an excellent collaboration with Olman. There has never been a doubt in my mind, who Olman worked for, and who was most important in his mindset and in his decision-making. The children. The teenagers. The young people who have already left the SOS Village. Olman always puts the needs and the well-being of the children and teenagers first and I view him as a very competent, patient, calm leader and role model. He is firm, but very caring and loving with the kids, and it is obvious from the way they act and react around him that their relationship is based on love and mutual respect -- not fear.

The behavior of the children and teenagers at the village speaks for itself, rarely have I seen such polite, united and caring children and teenagers. Olman is the director, father figure and role model for the children and teenagers living at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba. Being the director is not only his job. It is his life. I cannot even begin to imagine the sacrifices made by the employees working at the SOS Children’s Villages. You have to be a certain type of person to dedicate your life to the children and teenagers, the way they do. I admire all the SOS Children’s Villages for their sacrifices and the efforts they put into providing everything necessary to bring up the SOS children and teenagers in a loving and caring way, providing them a family.

It is with great sadness and concern that I am writing this letter to you, after it has been brought to my attention that the physical and mental wellbeing, as well as the safety of the children and teenagers at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba are in jeopardy. Furthermore, I am also very concerned for the director, the secretary and four of the SOS mothers.

I am currently in Honduras, for a month, working on my Master Thesis. I was hoping to be able to visit the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba to see the children, the teenagers and also to visit with Olman, the director. However, I learned that on August 10, the National SOS Children’s Office from Tegucigalpa, including the national supervisor Maricruz Martínez, had arrived to the village and suspended the director, the secretary as well as four mothers indefinitely, on alleged accusations of abuse and neglect.

As a consequence of the alleged reports of abuse and neglect, the police, the ‘fiscalia’ (public prosecutor/district attorney) and IHNFA (child services) were asked to conduct investigations in the village. I was informed that the mothers and the director were given very little time to pack only a few belongings, where after they were transported out of the village by the SOS national staff. Most of the mothers that work in the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba are from far away part of the country, and therefore had nowhere to go –- basically they were on the street. The director, his wife and their teenage son had to go to their son and daughter-in-law’s house.

As I understand it, food and lodging form part of the work and pay for the staff, meaning that the mothers have no housing outside the village, no food and no money to buy anything. Since most of the mothers come from regions far away, they had nowhere to go to, after being thrown out of the village. Fortunately, someone has been so kind to let them stay at a nearby house, and they are receiving food donations from people in the community, as well as from the American NGO, HondurasChildren.

I have been told that the children and teenagers at the village were not informed why their mothers and their director were taken away from them, for how long and whether they would be coming back or not. These children and teenagers have already been through many things and suffered from various losses in their short lives, and I was therefore shocked to learn that staff from an organization like the SOS Children’s Villages would act in such an irresponsible way.

The director went back to the village to ask for access to his house, to get some important personal belongings, including his electrical wheelchair (he is paralyzed from the waist down). The national staff denied him entry and would not hand over his wheel chair, claiming that he was just coming to the village to try to talk to the children and teenagers, with whom he is denied communication. That wheelchair is a personal belonging of the director, and an object, which has nothing to do with the investigations taking place at the village, and it seems absurd and beyond my understanding to deny a disabled person access to such a vital personal belonging as his wheel chair.

Since August 10, the situation at the village has developed in a most worrying manner. The children and teenagers are protesting and rebelling inside the village because they are scared and worried about their mothers and their director. Some of them have therefore chosen to leave the village to try to find their mothers and to find the director to try to get help. Although the director has been denied access and contact to the children and teenagers, some of them had contacted him and asked him to help them.

I consider Olman a very strong man emotionally, and I had never imagined that I should see him the state that he was in, when I visited him the day after he had been suspended from his job and the village. He was so sad, and so worried about the children and the teenagers, and he felt so frustrated and powerless in not being allowed to do his job and look after and protect his children and teenagers against what is happening.

I have been told that children and teenagers have been protesting and running away from the village. Honduras is a country with a very high crime rate, and I am scared and extremely worried when I think about what might happen to these children and teenagers if they are walking around unaccompanied and unprotected outside the SOS Children’s Village –- a place that should serve as their loving and caring home –- not a place where they feel insecure and that makes them want to run away. It is very understandable though, that the children and teenagers are acting out their frustrations and voicing their protests and concern about being denied the comfort of their family –- their mothers and their director, ‘Tio Olman’.

Last week, I was informed that the intermediate management of the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba has called the police to the village to come and arrest and take away seven teenagers because of their out of control behavior. The teenagers were being led away in handcuffs and were to be sent to a youth correctional facility in San Pedro Sula. Some of their teachers and members of the local church were informed of the situation, and arrived at the village to plead with the police to not take the teenagers away, but instead turn them over to the care of the church. Fortunately they succeeded, and a house has now been rented near their high school, mattresses have been borrowed and food is being donated to these teenagers, who are looked after by the church and their high school teachers.

I was informed that some of the teachers of the members of the church had gone to the village to ask the staff in charge to hand over the school uniforms and school supplies of the teenagers, so that they could continue their schooling. This was denied by the staff in charge. I express my disbelief that staff of the SOS Children’s Villages would treat a child or a teenager in this way. Many people are trying to help and support and make sure that the teenagers are taken care of and provided for.

On Saturday, I met up with ten young people that grew up at the village that I had promised to help communicate with the Main SOS Children’s Office. These young people, most now in their twenties, are the direct product of the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba, and some of them still have little brothers and sisters living in the village. They have written letters to you (all in Spanish), because they are concerned about the situation at the village and the homes where they grew up. I have scanned these letters and have included them, together with three video messages. I am capable of Spanish/English translations, but I have chosen not to translate the letters and the video messages, as I would prefer that SOS Children’s Villages translate the letters in order to ensure the credibility of the contents of these letters and video messages.

When the young people leave the SOS Villages here in Honduras, at least in the La Ceiba area and the Tela area, which are the two SOS Children’s Villages I know, the fact that they have grown up at the SOS village, is like a quality stamp, when they look for work or if they continue their studies. Most people in these areas are familiar with the SOS Children’s Villages and they are viewed as good institutions, preparing their children and teenagers well for the life ahead.

One of the concerns voiced by the young people, part of the SOS family, is that this current situation at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba will damage it’s honorable reputation and make it hard for them to find work when they leave the SOS Village. I have been told, but have not seen or heard it myself, that there has already been several reports in the local media about the ongoing situation at the village, including the fact that the children and teenagers are rebelling against the intermediate staff, in their struggle to get their mothers and director back. I have been told that the investigation has been put on hold, and that the national staff of the national SOS office has left the village in the hands of intermediate staff. Both the children and teenagers, as well as the staff and director are left with no information on what is to happen now and when.

I trust that the SOS Children’s Villages International is a responsible organization, and I therefore urge you to please take action and look into this matter immediately. Many people around the world, including former volunteers and organizations that have collaborated with the village now and in the past, are worried and frustrated about the wellbeing and safety of these kids, teenagers, director Olman Flores and the rest of the staff. This situation if violating the rights, both of the children and teenagers, as well as the staff. I ask you to please ensure that a thorough and just investigation is conducted at the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba and that the staff will be treated in a fair manner.

Should there be anything you wish me to clarify, then please do not hesitate to contact me. I will be in La Ceiba, Honduras until Thursday, September 1, where after I will return to my native country, Denmark. Kindly confirm that you have received this letter with the enclosed letters from former residents of the SOS Children’s Village La Ceiba, as well as enclosed letters from former volunteers at the village. (8/29/11)

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