My family and I are going to Juarez, Mexico with a team of people to build houses for the less fortunate. Last year I went to Juarez and the kids didn't have many toys. My sister and I played with the kids and the had one toy per kid and some kids didn't even have any toys. I realized that my family has so many toys that we don't even use anymore. I talked to my dad and he helped me decide that I should collect something more specific. I then thought of something more specific. My sister, my dad, and I all played soccer with the kids. Mostly all of the kids play soccer, that's the only sport that the they know. The soccer ball was a size 4 when the average is 5 and the ball was flat. It was all torn up and in bad shape. The kids only have about 3 balls for everyone in the orphanage. I have decided to collect soccer balls that will be donated to the kids in Juarez at the orphanage. I want to do this project because I want to help the less fortunate and I play soccer so I want other kids to be able to play the sport that I love too.
Once known for its cotton by the 1990’s, the only industry that survived was drug smuggling. They valley’s sparse population and location along Rio Grande’s dried up riverbed meant a person could easily walk cocaine and marijuana into Texas. For years, the smuggling was controlled by the Juarez cartel. But in 2008, Mexico’s largest and most powerful syndicate, the Sinaloa cartel, moved into the territory and declared war. The federal government sent in military in a desperate bid to calm the violence but nothing worked. Instead, the murder rate soared. Police, political leaders and community activists were shot down in the street. By 2009, the 20,000 population had a murder rate of 1,600 per person. This was six times higher than the neighborhoods “deadliest city in the world”. In 2010, several residents were stabbed in the face with ice picks. A local man aligned with the Juarez cartel was skewered with an iron bar, shot multiple times with bullets and then roasted on an open fire. This led to the local newspaper renaming it the “Valley of Death”. Still in 2017 this is still happening. Many people are homeless and there is so much poverty.