Dear CUDA supporters:
Thank you so much for being a part of our work in 2017, and working with us toward the future. People are experiencing justice, wellbeing, and joy in Arequipa. Development is a slow process, but it’s transformational. What is now just a seedling of new life we believe is growing into something much bigger.
The Living Libraries team is doing great work. Lucia and Nancy have headed up the program again this year, working with 560 kids and 30 teachers in four different schools. Since 2013, when Living Libraries took it’s current shape, we’ve worked with 51 teachers and over 1000 kids in six schools. Lucia and Nancy have been training me (Jeremy) and a psychologist named Miriam who plans to come on full-time in 2018 in order for Living Libraries to continue to grow. We want to add two new schools in each of the next three years, and to do so the team needs to keep growing.
This year’s teachers are really getting it. They’ve bought into the vision as a team and are working to incorporate the strategies we work on with them into all of their classes. When a school partners with us, it means more work for them. Development is hard work. But we believe it’s worth it and we depend on teachers who buy into that vision as well so that not only the kids we’re working with now will benefit, but future generations of students as well. We’re coming down the home stretch for the academic year (summer break starts in mid-December down south), a critical time for us as we wrap up training with the teachers and working with the kids. We do end of the year evaluations at the beginning of December, so you can expect to hear back from us with those results sometime before Christmas.
The health program—Pure Life—is taking shape. Jake continues to work at a local hospital to do followup care for diabetics, many of whom fall through the cracks in the health system here. Katie and Jaclyn have a small, but growing community forming around exercising together three times a week. This is part of Pure Life’s work in taking care of diabetics, as well as preventing diabetes by focusing on healthy lifestyles. Jaclyn recently shared Maximiana’s story of transformation, from having been diagnosed with diabetes to living a healthy, purer life. Jake recently trained 6 pharmacists from all over the city as volunteers for our care and education program for diabetics: ProCED. He’s working with them on how to provide followup care for diabetics in their communities. We’re really excited about this as we believe it’s the future direction of the project, and will report back as these pharmacists begin to help diabetics in their communities.
Once more, thank you for making this possible. We’re honored to be agents of change in the name of Jesus and toward the life and good of God’s reign, on earth as in heaven.
Jeremy Daggett
On behalf of the CUDA Board