It’s a sunny day in Haiti. As Dan Ravenhorst, Back2Back Haiti staff, walks towards Lighthouse Children’s Home, he can hear a clear, confident voice pierce the air. He smiles to himself. He may not understand every world to this song, but he recognizes the voice who is sharing it with the neighboring homes. Anne Marie… Read more
Ansouby’s eyebrows knit together as he looks down at his fingers, strumming across the strings of the guitar. To anyone watching, it might look like he is deeply concentrating, but his stature has become a release for him. A year ago, seven children from Harvest Care Children’s Home began taking music lessons from a local… Read more
Large bowls sit side by side on long, wooden tables. Each bowl is filled to the brim with rice and beans. As team members from Grace Chapel hand out Ziploc bags, the children from Lighthouse gather around the bowls. They begin to scoop rice and beans by the cupful into the plastic bags. Today, we… Read more
House-bound for three months following major surgery, Back2Back Co-Executive Director Beth Guckenberger shares six hard-earned lessons learned. Initially shared in Back2Back’s spring magazine (download a PDF of the original article here), the unanticipated response to this story is now also the subject of a 20-minute podcast. Download a PDF of the original magazine article here…. Read more
Her cry broke through the steady monsoon rains. In a rural village 3 hours outside Hyderabad, India, on a humid, July morning in 2002, V. Bindu, entered the world. Her parents, agricultural workers of the Banjara tribe, spend their days doing the labor intensive work of rice farming. But today they enjoy the sweet first… Read more
Haiti can be a hard place. Amidst stories of corruption, devastation, and crippling natural disasters are statistics that almost defy belief. Seventy-seven percent unemployment. Over 300 orphanages in the city of Port-au-Prince alone. The poorest country in the entire western hemisphere. However, there is also breathtaking natural beauty in the mountains and emerald green ocean… Read more
13-year-old Miguel furiously scribbled small notes, trying to catch every piece of information Jorge shared. Jorge Vieyra, Back2Back Cancun staffer and senior Psychology student at a local university, explained to eager ears the ins and outs of psychology and the careers it can open up. As Jorge unpacked the adventure of the human mind, other… Read more
Small, thin hands shoot straight into the sky as water sprays into the air. High-pitched squeals of delight erupt as a dolphin jumps high above the pool of water. Big, brown eyes follow the mammal up and watch as he dives below the surface. A group of children, ages six to eight, from the Tres… Read more
I went through a scrapbooking phase in middle school. I would take my disposable camera to Wal-Mart and slip it into the development envelope, and wait impatiently to see if my pictures turned out. My first scrapbook was purple. And I think my favorite part of the entire scrapbooking process was going to the store… Read more
Pranay looks down at the ball as he dribbles it from his left foot to his right and then back, again. He raises his eyes to the goal just up the field from him; bobbing and weaving between boys taller than him, with more experience than him, he edges closer to the net where the… Read more