Gregory Rec

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safe passage

In 1999, Yarmouth, Maine native Hanley Denning founded Sage Passage (Camino Seguro) in Guatemala City for the children whose parents scavenge through trash at the city's sprawling dump looking for items to resell. Children would work alongside their parents in the dump and Denning wanted to give those children a chance to get an education to help break the cycle of poverty. She started helping 40 children in 1999 and now the program works with over 500 children. Hanley Denning died in a tragic car accident in Guatemala on Janurary 18, 2007. These photos of families and children served by Safe Passage were taken the following week. To learn more about Safe Passage, go to safepassage.org. All photos are copyright, 2007 Portland Press Herald.
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Santos Murcia, 13, sits on a bed on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 that is separated from the main room of his house in Guatemala City by blankets. Murcia's mother Ruth and his three older siblings work in the dump and retrieved their beds and blankets from the dump.
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Santos Murcia, 13, sits on a bed on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 that is separated from the main room of his house in Guatemala City by blankets. Murcia's mother Ruth and his three older siblings work in the dump and retrieved their beds and blankets from the dump.

20070125murciafamily

  • Outside the room she shares with her four children, Ingrid Chiche pauses while talking about Safe Passage and Hanley Denning on Wednesday, January 24, 2007. "Only God knows why he has to take back his angel," she said.
  • Ingrid Chiche and her daughter Brenda Michelle talk while they wait Brenda's younger sister Valeria to get out of the Safe Passage educationall support program in Guatemala City. All four of Ingrid's children are served by Safe Passage.
  • Vultures perch on a tree near the vast municipal dump in Guatemala City, Guatemla while people pick through the trash below on Wednesday, January 24, 2006.
  • Guajeros, people who scavenge through the dump looking for items to resell, run alongside an arriving dump truck in the Guatemala City dump on Wednesday, January 24, 2007. By running alongside and holding on to a truck as it comes in, guajeros make an inherent claim over other scavengers for the right to pick through items that that truck dumps. In this process, though, some workers have been run over by the trucks.
  • Dump trucks leave the main gate of the Guatemala City dump on Thursday, January, 25, 2007. The words on the wall at left say 'Entrance of minors prohibited.'
  • Santos Murcia, 13, walks through his neighborhood, which is near the garbage dump in Guatemala City, on Wednesday, January 24, 2007. Santos participates in Safe Passage's vocational program and wants to be a construction worker. The Safe Passage program helps kids stay off the streets of Guatemala City's poor neighborhoods, where gangs and drugs are rampant.
  • In their home near the Guatemala City garbage dump on Wednesday, January 24, 2007, Ruth Murcia is overcome with emotion while recalling memories of Hanley Denning, who helped her and seven of her ten children, including Santos Murcia, left and her adopted son Oscar Moises, with the Safe Passage program she founded. Murcier works in dump, earning between $4 and $6 per day for items she finds that have resale value.
  • Santos Murcia, 13, sits on a bed on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 that is separated from the main room of his house in Guatemala City by blankets. Murcia's mother Ruth and his three older siblings work in the dump and retrieved their beds and blankets from the dump.
  • Muliza Murcia, 4, left and her brother Re–yea, 2, in their home near the Guatemala City dump on Wednesday, January, 24, 2007. Both children are in the Safe Passage program started by Hanley Denning.
  • Sam Wilcox of Cumberland gives Cristian Perez, 13, a piggy-back ride past the library at Casa Hogar in Antigua, Guatemala on Thursday, January 25, 2006. Wilcox has been volunteering with Safe Passage in Guatemala for five months and, at in the residential program at Casa Hogar, he works with children who have been severely neglected or abused.
  • Bret Tonelli of Portland talks with Cindy Lopez Reyes, 10, while she works on a drawing on Thursday, January 25, 2006 for an art/woodworking class that Tonelli teaches at Casa Hogar in Antigua, Guatemala. Tonelli has been volunteering with Safe Passage for seven months and plans to stay for a year or possibly longer.
  • Stu Silverstein of Waterville teaches Evelyn Herrera, 14, left, and Estafani Jimenez, 12, how to make pizza at the vocational program of Safe Passage in Guatemala City, Guatemala on Thursday, January 25, 2006. Silverstein came down to Safe Passage with a mid-coast Maine group called Masons on a Mission to build the wood-fired ovens for the program and returned with the group this year to teach students in the program how to use the ovens.
  • Taylor Burns, a senior at Falmouth High School, holds 9-month-old Juan David Sucuqui on Thursday, January 25, 2006 at the Early Childhood Center in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Safe Passage opened the center in January.
  • Children pile on volunteer Shannon Moyle while waiting to be picked up by their parents at the Early Childhood Center on Wednesday, January 24, 2007 in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Moyle, from Canada, is a long-term volunteer and plans to stay on after her year commitment is up.
  • Sam Wilcox of Cumberland walks with Lupe Garcia Barrios, 11, left, and Catherine Lopez Reyes on the grounds of Casa Hogar in Antigua, Guatemala on Thursday, January 25, 2006. Wilcox has been volunteering with Safe Passage for five months and at Casa Hogar, a residential program, he works with children who have been severely neglected or abused.
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