Now in only its third year, the 2018 Success Academy is making great progress in nine state-run detention and protection centers across Honduras and El Salvador. Academy students have recently taken classes on discernment, imagining the future, their call to be holy, keeping goals in sight, managing projects, and the roles of a leader. The 210 students have now reached the midpoint of the 2018 Academy session.
As part of the Orphan Helpers Success Academy, students work on community service projects to improve the detention center or orphanage where they live. Projects have included cleaning, removing graffiti, and clearing brush.
At the Sendero center in El Salvador, students from the academy renovated the center’s soccer field. They sanded the goal posts, painted the poles, and repaired the turf. The boys learned how to work together as a team and gain a sense of ownership in their work and their surroundings. They expressed their gratitude to Orphan Helpers for the opportunity to make the center more livable and to be seen as young people who are changing with the help of God.
“For us as teachers of the Success Academy, it was an honor to work on this project,” Orphan Helpers teacher Francisco says. “The Academy students tell us the final project is very nice, and they thanked us for the opportunity. We told them they should also congratulate themselves for their hard work and a job well done.”
A total of 16 boys from the Success Academy participated in the project.