During the first week of January, students from Southern New Hampshire University joined us to refurbish one of the safe houses. With the growing number of children in need of Safe House accommodation, Bitou Family Care needed to find a new home. Luckily, a dairy farm adjacent to the village offered three houses for the new site. The location provides a safe distance from the village where children can be away from daily threats of the village but are still within walking distance of the school.
While two of the houses have been fixed up and the children have been able to move in, the third house needed serious work. Our volunteers spent the week (with a heat wave!) scrubbing mold from the ceilings, plastering cracks, fixing windows, painting the entire place, and adding clouds to the newly painted blue ceilings in the bedrooms, as well as Yogi Bear for the lounge - making the house a home for the young girls getting ready for their move.
We also installed a solar water heater at one of the new safe houses. The old safe houses, located in the village, are in the planning stages of being turned into shelters for battered women, as well as after school care for children.
Thank you to our wonderful group from SNHU for giving up their vacation to help make a difference for children in Kurland! We wish you could have stayed longer!!
