December is a special month in Nicaragua, because the holidays have started which also signals the start of a quiet period.
Few people will spend time away from home and the most people will do is visiting relatives who live relatively nearby. Travel abroad for pure leisure and relaxation is a big luxury that few people can afford.
However, in the long vacation many employees take leave, which also applies to our Ruach foundation. I have to arrange the duty rosters in such a way that there is always at least minimum cover in the home. During this holiday time we cannot always give the quality of care and attention that we would like to give, but on the other hand we deserve to work in a somewhat lower gear. Till mid-January we will have fewer activities outside the home; from February onwards we will plan new activities.
December is also a time of contemplation, celebration and making resolutions for the new year. In our Strategic Plan for 2017 we have outlined Ruach’s activities based on our five-year plan, supplemented by and adapted to what we have learned in 2016. We also had to amend the budget as everything turned out a bit more expensive than budgetted when we drafted our project plan. But is it not common that there is a difference between ‘dream’ and ‘reality’?
The challenges in 2017 beckon. We need to consolidate what we started in 2016. And we need to expand so that more people with an intellectual disability benefit from our work. We hope we will raise the funds that we need in order to implement our plans. It is certain that we will continue to search for funds in Nicaragua, but it’s equally certain that we will for the time being still depend on gifts from you via Vivir Juntos!