Before I settled in Catemaco I had gotten a whiff that there might be an orphanage here. It took me a few months until I found it. I had previous experience supporting children in the Far East with "Catholic Relief Services" and damaging some of them with another affiliation and I was looking to find a place to put my 2 cents.
In 1995, a religious señora donated one hectare, (2.5 acres) on the outskirts of Catemaco to a charitable agency to establish a home for children without homes.
The receiving agency was the brothers of the Order of Mercy, a catholic monk organization founded in 1218, http://orderofmercy.org/. The Order had begun operations in Mexico City in 1984 and now houses several hundred children there.
A holding facility, locally called "Casa Hogar", with 6 rooms and a supervisor quarter were constructed on the large terrain in Catemaco, a few kids were imported, and then the continuity of the project died.
The monastic order has been trying to enlarge the facility to accomodate more than 100 children, primarily from Los Tuxtlas , BUT, because of changing land values in the last 10 years, survivors of the original donor have been fighting for posession of the property.
For the last 9 years, as far as I know, my Popoluca and I have been the only local private presence supporting the children with electric and electronic equipment, school supplies, food, etc.
In a small way they are supported by the local catholic church organization, and of course by their substantially larger Mexico City Order . According to the "father" supervising the Casa, that support is "negligible".
Originally I had thought that these childrens were all orphans. Most are not. Instead they were collected from damaging environments, such as child abusers and violent parents.
I have followed some of them for the past 9 years and am happy to see some achieve university status.
Meanwhile there is a group of children that need support, and yes, they are tax deductible!
Casa Hogar Villa Nolasco, AC
Photo: Taken in 2005. Usually when I am building something, I invite the kids to work for a stipend, that time, cleaning my beach.
