As in many poor countries, Mexico does not have enough funding to make a significant impact on its 45 million poor. Anything substantive would take many years, if not decades, to show a significant improvement.

A Pebble in the Pond of Child Poverty Project allows the poor to help themselves and substantially increase the quality of their lives in less than 6 weeks. In my experience, approximately one-half incorporate some or all of this program into their lives. They learn the program, they do the work, and its usually the older children and teenagers who communicate the benefits of this program to their neighbors. This is the self-generating part of the program.

A Pebble in the Pond Program is a unique, revolutionary, no cost, and multi-skill based training program that does not require any government assistance. All of the work in this program comes from those motivated people within the community. A group of 4-6 motivated mothers are empowered and become the central catalyst for improvement in each extremely poor community. The Program involves training this group of 4-6 mothers in 12 Simple Survival Skills, 12 Educational Shortcut Skills, and 12 Income-Producing Skills. The program is taught to both the mothers and children through either a portable DVD player, photographs, or a special animated comic book filled with pictures and simple diagrams that describe the skills.

I. FORM A CENTRALIZED GROUP OF 4-6 MOTIVATED MOTHERS

This is the primary group of 4-6 mothers that join together in a unit to learn, train, and ultimately become the community teachers of the program. For those who have never worked in a slum, no one should underestimate an impoverished mother’s drive to improve the life of her child. By following the program, they can experience a remarkable improvement in their water, food, clothes, shelter, sanitation, health, dignity, and quality of life. This is a skill-based self-start program where the work comes from within the severely impoverished communities and not from the outside.

As I have personally seen so many times, when a few mothers group together and work as a unit for the benefit of their children, they are like an African “Lion Pride”. Like the African lionesses, these mothers will group together to pool their resources, protect, nurture, raise, and train their children to survive. By grouping together, experience shows that expenses are decreased, productivity is improved, and they can provide a better environment and important training for their children. At first, many mothers will not want to or cannot participate in such a program. But, in my experience, once these mothers see the tremendous benefit that this program offers to their children, they do participate. One benefit of the lion pride concept is the support that the mothers give each other emotionally and physically and stay focused on what is in the best interests of their children. By learning and using these skills, incredible improvement in the quality of life can occur. As for the men, it is said, “Men make war and Women make peace”. As in a lion pride, it is best that the men stay out. 

Once the other mothers and children who live in the slums in other communities see the results, more people will be eager to learn and use some or all of the skills that allow them to improve their quality of life. 

Impoverished teenagers are competitive and almost uniformly want to learn and share in the skills. It gives them a positive outlook, despite the circumstances.

The 4-6 mothers are like “pebbles” being dropped in the “pond” and spreading the knowledge out like “ripples”. Those that are just looking for a handout are not as many as expected because the program only gives them skills and shows the people how to help themselves.

TWELVE EASY-TO-LEARN SURVIVAL SUPERSKILLS USING DISCARDED ITEMS COOKING:

Solar stoves are made from cardboard and aluminum foil using a diagram. It is not necessary to use big stoves or open fires. These solar stoves can be used to easily boil water.

WATER PURIFICATION: Solar Water Distillers, made from a diagram, can purify ocean water. These are constructed using large plastic water bottles, discarded silicone, flat glass and copper tubing from old cars, wood, and black plastic bags. The purification of ocean water will allow the future possibility of severely impoverished communities to move on to unused arid shorelines in Mexico for a better place and a better life.

The S.O.D.I.S. technique is also used. To purify water, a plastic water bottle filled with contaminated water can be filtered through a T-shirt. The bottle is then placed in the sunlight for 6 hours and it destroys 99% of bacteria, parasites, and viruses due to UV light and heat.

TOILETS AND SANITATION:

Compost toilets are made from trash barrels with a hole cut on the side, ½ buried, and a soft toilet seat is made from a small bicycle tire. 

SHOWERS: Solar heated showers are made from large suspended water-filled plastic bags.

CLOTHES: They are shown, using patterns in their picture books, how to make shirts, pants, dresses, children’s clothes, ponchos, pants and umbrellas from woven or connected plastic bags of various colors.

SHOES: Shoes are made from plastic bags, car seat covers, and patterned/cut tire treads.

REINFORCING AND IMPROVING THE HOME: They are shown how to take discarded plastic bags, tie them together with strips of plastic and make them into large waterproof sheets to protect their huts from wind and rain. Their shanty town huts can be reinforced using bricks made from wet newspaper, dirt, and small stones compressed in a wood mold, and tightly encased in a plastic bag.

Their huts are made leak proof, more attractive, and the dirt floors are covered using woven plastic bag sheets of various colors. They are trained in making a large temporary dry tent placed over a protected area, which the children can use as a play area in sunny weather or in the torrential rains.

The 4-6 mothers who group together can, if possible, connect their homes in this type of large tent. By joining together, they can have a larger multi-room home. They can share in their resources, markedly decrease their costs, have more common sleeping space for the children, and work with the program.
CHILDREN’S BEDDING: Plastic bags are filled with newspaper balls and make comfortable pillows. A common sleep area for the children can be covered with these pillows from wall-to-wall to keep the sleeping area dry, free of scorpions, etc.

GENERATING ELECTRICITY: 

From a diagram, they construct vertical windmills, use a car generator, battery, wires, and indoor and outdoor lights to illuminate several of their homes. They make a backup generator from an old car engine and the same parts. When the solar industry is more active in Mexico, they can be taught how to make solar panels from discarded broken panel parts obtained from a manufacturer.

FISHING: They are taught to fish making poles using a tree branch, string, old fish line, and hooks made out of pop cans. Shoreline fishing nets are made from string, discarded and repaired nets, suspended using air filled water bottles at each end. The 2 ends near the shore are weighted down using stones. Spear fishing is performed using a tree branch and aluminum can spear. They are taught to preserve fish using sea salt from the solar water distillation. The fish are an important source of protein for the children. 

RAISING CROPS: They raise crops and if necessary, use purified ocean water from the solar water still for irrigation and sun-dried compost as fertilizer.

HUNTING: They are taught to hunt using slingshots made out of a small “V” shaped tree branch and cut old bicycle inner tube slings. They construct bow and arrows from tree branches.

ANIMAL TRAPS FOR FOOD: They trap birds and small animals by constructing a highly effective “Arapuca Figure 4 Trap” using tree branches. They raise chickens for eggs as the chicks are very inexpensive and raise other small animals.

INSECT AND SCORPION TRAPS: Mosquito and insect traps are made from water bottles cut at the top, inverted, and baited with sugar water. Scorpions cannot climb glass so an angulated inverted glass jar with insect bait works.

STRAY DOGS: The stray dogs are separated into male and female cages and are placed in double pens using tree branch fences. The dogs are used with dogcarts constructed from old bicycles and wooden boxes using a diagram. They carry moderate loads much the way it was done in the 19th century in Europe.

The program is game-based using comic books and game boards. 

If someone can learn checkers or play cards, they can learn this course. Ninety Percent of the knowledge that we use in our daily lives, we never learned in school. Ninety percent of what we learned in school, we never use. This Program trains mothers in educational skills that they will use each day. They then train their children. There are no books. This is patterned after my Savant “Learn How to Learn, Think How to Think” Program. These skills can be taught in any language.

Learning English using the “Sing-a-Talk-a-Lingo” technique. Of any educational skill that a Mexican child can learn, conversing in English can have a dramatic benefit for their livelihood. Being bilingual can open the door to working in the travel industry, domestic industries, government offices, etc. When one sings a language, they use the side of their brain from that controls speech. When a child does this when learning a language, they pick it up much more rapidly. There are 90 phrases that are sung using familiar songs. They sing and learn 2 phrases a day.

Photographic Memory Stickers

Retentive reading

Writing using skywriting technique

Mind Math to calculate in one’s head

Danger Drama Class to learn the art of protecting oneself from burglary, fighting, bullies, kidnapping, rape, etc.
Health, First Aid, prenatal care and infant delivery.
Family Health History of Diabetes, weight control using the Kick Fat Fast diet

Behavioral contracts

Relationships

Advanced problem solving

Decision making, A/B

The “Children Who Help Children” Program encourages older, well-to-do children to donate “Things”. Most communities will see, over time, that the impoverished communities are “cleaning up” the environment as they are using discarded items. Be it ever so small, it is something that the “better to do children” in school will see while driving through a city. As an example, covering their huts with white plastic sheets increases their attractiveness and less despicable to other well-to-do communities. Each middle and upper class home has, on average, 1000 pounds of items that will never be used. These are things that would be thrown out in the trash if someone moves. They will make a dramatic improvement in an impoverished person’s life. Schools and churches could structure the program. Just one school field trip to one of these shanty town slums would change a student’s impression of poverty forever. An example of these items can include canned or packaged food, towels, sheets, clothes, shoes, kitchen utensils, and books. Combs, hairbrushes, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc., can make a big difference.

Vertical Windmills made from two half-cut trash barrels mounted on an old car’s driveshaft with a generator and battery charger.
Electrical back-up generators made from old car engines, generators, batteries, and wires for interior and external lights.
Mini-construction cranes made from an old car’s rear axel, tires, drive shaft, and an attached winch can be used at small construction sites.

Portable small railroad track conveyors. 10-30 meters of track are made from old discarded PVC pipes. The cart is made from bicycle parts and wooden boxes. The tracks can be easily laid at any construction site. Heavy loads, dirt, etc. can be transported in the cart from one location to another and save time and effort.

This is an orphanage in Mexico that we are supporting. The woman who runs the orphanage, Jovita, is very caring and is loved by all the children.

A Pebble in the Pond Program is a unique, revolutionary, no cost, and multi-skill based training program that does not require any government assistance. All of the work in this program comes from those motivated people within the community. A group of 4-6 motivated mothers are empowered and become the central catalyst for improvement in each extremely poor community. The Program involves training this group of 4-6 mothers in 12 Simple Survival Skills, 12 Educational Shortcut Skills, and 12 Income-Producing Skills. The program is taught to both the mothers and children through either a portable DVD player, photographs, or a special animated comic book filled with pictures and simple diagrams that describe the skills.

My work with impoverished and disabled children started thirty-four years ago when my youngest son was born with a severe neurological disability.

Over the last 30 years, I have operated, taught, and worked with disabled and impoverished children in over 80 countries.

Due to this need, over the last 4 years, I have been working with several severely impoverished Mexican Shanty town slums in Acapulco at Cumbers de Llano Largo, The Frontera community outside of Acapulco, and in Mexico City.

These areas have several thousand severely impoverished children. In Mexico City, the poorest of the poor children are living in squalor in the largest trash dump in the world. In this trash dump, the children have no shoes, have gunk crusted on their feet and the smell is overwhelming. In 2009, the trash dumps had 3 feet (1m) of water during a flood.

The average hut in a Shanty Town Slum has a mother and 3 children living in just one room. It is the size of an average American closet. It is windowless, run-down, leaking, and made from cardboard, pieces of wood, and plastic. They live on a dirt floor, usually with no beds, and the holes in the hut result in mosquitoes, insects, and scorpions.

The children have no regular source of food, clean running water, or electricity. There are no bathrooms or toilets. When available, the children usually eat pieces of tortillas and beans cooked over an open wood fire. Hi-grade protein is either scant or non-existent. The smoke causes bronchitis and asthma in young children and the children have no shoes, wear dirty clothes, and may have to sleep on the dirt floor.

During the rains, the floor is muddy and everything in the hut is wet.
Even when the family has a husband or older son working, there is barely enough money to buy food, clean water, or other basic essentials.

The people live this way because their parents and grandparents lived this way. They do not know any different way, so they continue to live this way generation after generation.