The church was decorated with many of the 1000 origami cranes that the children had created, and the programs were in the same shape. The 14 participants, ages 9-13, were dressed up to show off all that they had worked on for the past eight months. Parents and friends were assembled in the pews and food from the accompanying potluck dinner could be smelled cooking down the hall. The children were visibly nervous and a few mistakes were made, but salsa instructor Lysa-Monique Jenkins noted, “it’s not the mistakes people make but the way you recover from them.”

 

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With quality in mind, BuildaBridge enlisted a videographer from overseas to capture the sights and sounds of the Institute.

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From their respective cities, five overseas visitors traveled over 17,000 miles to reach Byrn Mawr, Pennsylvania and the BuildaBridge Institue, traveling from Oslo, Norway, Drammen, Norway, Guatemala City, Guatemala and Lejre, Denmark.

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"I’ve always been drawn to trying to find ways to help impoverished people becaome self sufficient – earning and making money finding resources- connecting the dots for people," said Institute participant Daune Ring

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What makes a person a good candidate for service with a non-profit organization? Having previously created your own non-profit organization certainly doesn't hurt.

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There were hundreds of pieces of paper piled around, and people rushed from room to room, frantically preparing for an onslaught of visitors from around the country and outside of the country.

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We didn’t have the proper party we were hoping for when we finished the mural today. The tall, sturdy ladder we needed to reach the top half of the wall was in use at the prison hospital most of the day. I had brought with me a change of nice clothes for the event, but someone spilled black paint on the blouse while it was poking out of my purse on the ground. We actually were painting up until

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Today the men made us lunch. It was a nice surprise! Two fries eggs with beans and a lot of bread. One of the chaplains who translates for us was excited to take several photos of me eating it. One or two chaplains sit with the men every day. While I am here they are my guides and guards.

The men who gather to watch the mural process learned my name today. I only know four of them by name

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Leah Samuelson. It's hard to know what to think about the painting gangsters. They have such a strong and violent reputation here (no one will work with them), and I'm getting feedback from different outside sources:

One opinion is that these guys aren't a good use of our resources, which
would be better spent in poor villages with people who aren't murdering people.

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Leah Samuelson. Estrategia de Transformacion staff showed me to the prison for barrio 18 gang members at 9:00 this morning. We entered with a long line of wives and girlfriends bringing clothes and gifts to men inside.

I was introduced to two artists in a hallway who were interested in helping with the mural. My host from EDT asked if I was ready to begin painting. I said no, and

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Muralist Leah Samuelson heads to Guatemala City on Sunday May 18 to begin a mural in one of Guatemala's prisons that houses gang members. The project, a local request, will

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