Newsletter July – September 2021

New school of music: a work in progress

We have started construction of a new music building thanks to a donation made by the Tony Robbins Foundation. We thank all our professional volunteers including Arch. John Osborn, Eng. Rodrigo Altmann and Arch. Abraham Valenzuela for consulting on this project. We’ll have some pictures soon!

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New Board of Directors

We say goodbye to our President Courtney Borquet, who has been part of the Board of Directors for over 10 years and a volunteer since 2007! Courtney has worked very hard as president of the Board for the last few years and we really appreciate her efforts and commitment to the project. She continues as a volunteer director of the Disabled Children’s program (read more below).

We welcome to the new Board of Directors! Simona Daniele (president), Martín Salerno (vicepresident), Anginette Arroyo Arias (secretary), Vincent I Barrabe (treasurer), Wenceslao Mendioroz Nogaro (vocal), Ana Margarita Elizondo Garofalo (vocal), Roberto Céspedes Chavarría (vocal), Ana Catalina Baltodano Rojas (fiscal).

You can read the 2020 Annual report and financial report.

https://cepiacostarica.org/reports/

Psychological attention program for children and youth

We would like to inform you that 155 children have received treatment with EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), most of them are from the coastal area of Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. Currently, 52 of them remain in treatment, 10 of the cases were referred to the Costa Rican social care system, 2 cases were referred to Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI) and there are 10 children on waiting list who are going to be treated soon. Five children will continue with EMDR therapy and 3 children had telepsychology therapy.

Read more below about the children that are going through tough times and their participation in EMDR therapy.

The CIDAI (Centro Infantil Diurno de Atención Integral) program provides psychological attention to minors with our internal program. 95 children were attended over the past 3 months. Two cases were referred to the Costa Rican social care system and 2 cases were referred to Patronato Nacional de la Infancia. Two groups of children from primary school attended to 4 workshops on Drugs Prevention and Sexuality and their parents attended 2 workshops on hygiene and self-care habits and positive discipline “The power of words”.

Measuring adult patients’ satisfaction with psychological therapy

105 people have filled out the satisfaction survey as patients of Psychological Attention Clinic for Adults so far, 79% of the patients are women and 21% are men, age 18-90 years. Also, the survey finds 86% of the patients very satisfied with the professional and the communication with them, counseling, human warmth and being heard.

82% of the patients feel very satisfied with the therapy and agree they have improved their lives due to it and because of the way the therapist attended them.

In conclusion 99% of the patients recommend the Psychological Attention Clinic for Adults program to the rest of the community, which means we have achieved one of the main goals of this program.

Empowering women

Over the last three months we’ve been working supporting women who choose to improve their wellbeing by participating in the Women’s Circle group. This is a place for women to share their life experiences. The meetings are often attended by CEPIA’s staff and sometimes they are attended by volunteers who share their knowledge, time and experiences.

These are some of the topics we’ve worked with for this trimester: identifying the cycle of violence and getting out of it, positive discipline to improve family relationships, how to build limits assertively, aromatherapy, making candles, art therapy, and how to make homemade compost and how to recycle. We thank for the collaboration of our volunteers Viry Delgado and Georgina Quesada from Guardianes de la Naturaleza.

We also keep supporting vulnerable women with donations from our donations store which benefit many families, especially with clothes, food and second hand items that we get from donations. Women also work in our organization as volunteers.

We are working on a new initiative involving the DonorSee platform that is intended to allow donors to quickly and easily help people in the world’s poorest countries. For that purpose we give our entrepreneurs women the chance to go public with some of their ideas so that through the platform could get the donations they need to fulfill their projects.

Kids with special needs

CEPIA is pleased to have new activities for local kids with special needs since last August including art and music classes. We want to especially thank our music teacher, Rodrigo Fonseca and our art teacher, Alejandra Parody. Kids age 12-16 were also excited to have participated the Consejo de la Persona Joven program. They had a virtual party with some snacks, balloons craft activities and t-shirts painting.

Going to the beach and the swimming pool is one of the favorite days of our group. They really have a great time along with their families. We also want to thank to all the companies that let us use their facilities this year: Hacienda Pinilla Beach Club, Best Western and Sibou Spa and Restaurant.

Special thanks to our volunteer Kelle Rich who is working to help the kids and their families to achieve their personal goals. We also thank the director’s program Courtney Borquet.

Young entrepreneurs

The youth participated in campaigns to clean the area of Huacas. Also, on the national parks day with the Leatherback Trust they visited the sea park Las Baulas. Another activity was together with the personnel of SINAC 100 Costa Rican native trees were planted, such as Guanacaste, Nance, Almendros, among other species.

These young people participated in several workshops: creative thinking, critical thinking, news analysis, human trafficking, restoring circle (self-esteem), Cinema: Waak an Danz, masculinity, International Humanitarian Right (with the support of the Red Cross Committee of Cartagena), and Human Rights. Some workshops were implemented by the Centro Cívico por la Paz de Santa Cruz: skills to increase the self-control locus, Human Rights, Masculinity, Gender violence, Gender and sex.

Commitment, Love and Freedom were the main values for this month. Some activities towards the celebration of July 25th were organized and there was a typical Costa Rican breakfast. Also, there were some activities planned related to the International Day of Youth where the adolescents recorded a video about the importance of youth in society and their contribution. Also, the National Parks day celebration was organized, and the day of the African-Costa Rican culture and the Independence Day.

The assistance for the young people in their the formal education process started. Some of the youth could take exams in order to complete primary school. Computer lessons continued this month along the support of volunteers Alex and Stephanie, using the Excel tools. And the English classes continued with professor Dimitirs and with the virtual program with Rosetta Stone.

Relaxation and meditation techniques for mindfulness, yoga and other disciplines were given to the youth in collaboration with Priscilla Arias, Marian Paniagua and Lily Bos.

The youth enjoyed some activities related to artistic expressions with the support of Rodrigo Villalobos. Also, sports classes to enhance physical condition, teamwork skills and health care was provided by with Belquis Gutiérrez. Swimming and water rescue lessons with Leo Almanza and physical conditioning and recreation with the professor Belquis Gutiérrez at Jungle Gym.

Training programs

We’ve had three important training programs! To keep our students in the course electrical installations updated to face new challenges and be ready for new employee opportunities. They received some lessons about home robotics provided by the Elektric Group company.

We introduce you to the students of marine studies, which is very close to finish the theoretical and practical course of more than 500 hours imparted by the INA. They started on April and on October the group is starting the professional supervised practice in different companies in the area. Congratulations on your effort!

During August and September, the professional and employee training programs had 87 students participate in workshops on values, identity and health in the workplace. The last group of students was the group from the waiter training course by CEPIA for the INA. The students have shown commitment to the course and there is an excellent learning environment.

Legal advice

Our new lawyer María Arguedas is in contact with 15 people who had been referred to the legal department to get updated with their cases. The most relevant cases were related to violence against children due to domestic violence where their mothers are the victims.

During this month 20 migration cases were attended, to help the people to get shelter, refugee and/or information towards the requirements to get the residence permits. Also 2 cases were related to domestic violence and 3 cases related to alimony. And there 2 cases that needed to be referred to psychological attention.

Centro Infantil Diurno de Atención Integral CIDAI

In the CIDAI program there are 112 minors who receive educational, psychological and health support. Also they have the chance to do some recreational activities along the support of PANI and IMAS.

This trimester, the kids got tutoring lessons with our volunteers who sent the kids some material, videos, and activities to help them with school.

Everybody makes a circle daily with mindfulness exercises, where they learn values such as commitment, love and freedom.
92 kids received swimming and English lessons twice a week.

The kids from the first primary school group along with GAIA foundation completed the program: I am the answer, and the model of sustainable life, where they learned how to take care of the environment and how to make change happen, they signing a peace commitment to the Earth.

Kids primary school group II and the group of young along Leatherback Trust planted more than 100 trees.

Among the important holidays we celebrated the annexation of Nicoya. The kids wore typical clothes and made handcrafts.

The CIDAI program benefits 112 minors in an integrated program, protecting their rights and developing life skills.

This program with the support of the social workers department, visited 13 families to verify their situation and to oversee the family dynamics in order to incorporate new kids into our program. The children got the chance to participate 9 social and educational workshops. Four crisis interventions took place with the kids, and they learned about emotional management. A complaint was made to PANI in regard to 2 minors are protected by that institution. Four interdisciplinary meetings occurred help the families in the program.

Extracurricular Classes

Nova Enderson lunched the Happy Feet Project to teach youngsters to skate, with the support of Steven Villarreal, who was part of the second generation of benefited youth of Villarrel’s Skate Park project, and he’s an instructor now!

We keep organizing and expanding the programs to more communities, inaugurating a new group of handcraft activities in the town of Cartagena, called “Our colors”. The program is coordinated by the volunteer Johanna Vargas Leitón. In the Trapiche community, our soccer team we have some stars like Cristel Juárez Molina, Brigit Monge y Dylan Talabera, who play in the under 15 years old category from the Saprissa sports club and the Alajuelense sports club, thanks to the coach and volunteer Andrey Juárez Molina.

In this program we encourage sports to promote new learning experiences and opportunities. We also have English classes for kids in the community of Huacas. We completed seven girls’ clubs, after beautiful eleven months of sharing and making new friends in a safe environment. We announce the opening of six new clubs on the communities of Tempate y Santa Rosa.

We are very happy with Connect Ocean company for opening a course coordinated by Jairo Morúa, for people who are interested in becoming swimming teachers in the coast communities of CEPIA.

On the celebration of Children’s Day we want to thank to the Selina Hotel and Hero Academy for the recreational and fun activities they offered. And we thank Darla Murillo Henson for the pool party celebrated on the Children’s Day in Potrero.

Strengthening families living in extreme poverty

We made home visits in order to learn about about the conditions of vulnerability and social risk. Twenty-two donations were managed for furniture and clothes that had been donated to CEPIA. Seven references were made for different government institutions to follow.

SPECIAL THANKS of the month

Thanks to SIMAN for the 100 umbrellas donation for this raining season and some swimming equipment for our extracurricular classes.

Thanks to our donors! (read below)

Whale Donors

The Tony Robbins Foundation
Las Ventanas de Playa Grande
Rocketgenius
Colette Cares
Todd & Mary Heistand Family Foundation
Troper Wojcicki Foundation
Kaplan family
Reserva Conchal
Jodi Gallant & Stuart Sheldon
John & Donna Sommer
Curt & Lori Stasny
Bart Van Vooren
Jon & Lisa Reichlin
Strachan Foundation
Pura Vida Energy Systems
Bella Vida
Julie & Jeff Jumonville
Jan Johnson
Martyn & Debi Hoffmann
Junta de Protección Social, IMAS, PANI
Fundación CRUSA
Munir Hussain
Flamingo Reality
Chris Daley
SIMAN
Stephane Boivin
Pura Vida slings
Ted Alexander
Mariposa Homes
Jeffrey Christo

We also thank

Sangha Angud
Heather Gilman
Gasolinera JSM
Gilded Iguana Hotel Nosara
Ana Akin
Claire Davenport
Britt Ezrre
Joshua Taylor
Christina Acosta
James Filerman
FRAME projects
SUPER MASSAI
Nicole & Christian Huet
Damian Bruno
Jorge Alers
Brad Cooper
Joan Coleman
Michael Baral
Mark Olenik
Kristy Koncak
George Peter Rose
Urban Bodyworks
James Guyot
Anna May Davidson
Luciano Leao
Nicky Barek
Ellen Zoe
Jacqueline Carsman
Juan de Dios Duarte Gomez
Erenia Blandon
Jacqueline Carsman
Reunion CR
Sophia Fink
Grace Hoffmann
Kara Speltz
Sara Anderson
Wander World Travel
Mireille Besombes

Gracias por sus donaciones materiales:

Jorge aguilar, Rodrigo Fonseca, Greg Hadden, Julia Tar, Diana Blanco, Natalia Correa, Lisa Burham, Morgan Morales, The Big 5, Martin y Lannessa Mosham, Isabelle Emond, Ryan &, Nicole Belisle, Ricard Piese, julie Harris, Britt Ezrre, Tamara Maclntyre, Andrew Y Julia Novairi, Christina Luna, Ingrid Vallejos, Johanna Vargas, Carli Dowell, Andy Pierce, Javier Vargas, Michel Fullilove, Kendle Bale, Melissa may, Maria Fernanda Cubas, Joelle Lavoie, Elisa Saucier Bonilla, Alexandra Saborio Cavallini, Barbara Marsilio, Rodrigo Malcotti, Sean Gallagher, Kirsten Juntuner, Stephanie lippens, Sara Anderson, Christine Parrot, Jon & Chris Cavaletto, Debra Marcos, Heladeria Enjoy, Huacas, Steve & Leah Jones, Paula Thompson, Panaderia El Patio en Playa Potrero, Petra Schoep, Jimmy Gleich, Jason Abernathy, Janna Frosgren, Witch´s Rock Surf Camp, Ryan & Nicole Belisle, Marsha Cosman, Panaderia Padok Playa Grande.

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