History of the Home

The Hogar Miguel Magone was founded in 1996 by Karen Rhodes Reynosos, with help from family and friends. It provides shelter for boys from the Streets of Guatemala City where they are forced to fend for themselves because of poor family support.

Karen started volunteering in a refuge for street kids when she was just 16 years old and her passion for helping these children grew from there. However she noticed that despite the help they received many of the boys returned to the streets and to the life that they knew, unable to accept and understand the help that was being offered to them.

Karen trained as a psychologist but in her spare time persisted in her aim to understand these boys and provide a service which they could relate to, understand and accept. She started to spend time in the dangerous downtown district of Guatemala City, an area rife with drug taking, prostitution and violence where many of the boys were living. She took them lunches and washed their clothes whilst rewarding them with new shirts and shoes if they accepted her help. Gradually she began to gain the trust of some of the boys and in 1996 she rented a house in Zona 7 of the city where she could start to give them a roof over their head.

Unfortunately in these early days some of the boys she accepted into her home were taking drugs and were already too damaged to help. This was a continuous learning process for Karen but over the years she has come to realise that it is often the younger, less affected children that she needs to concentrate on in order to make a difference to their lives.

In 1998 thanks to donation and the help of a generous land owner, Hogar Miguel Magone moved to it's current location and is now home to between 50 and 60 young children between the ages of 5 and 16. Karen's greatest supporters are her husband and 12-year-old daughter who help her every day at the home.

There is a constant need for financial as well as vounteer support and we hope you will join Orphans Hope project to help create a future for Guatemala's children!