Friends of the Orphans - Escarleth Flores

Our Stories: Staff

Escarleth Flores
Purchaser, Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos Bolivia
The Challenges and Rewards of Shopping for a Large Family
December 2006

Escarleth with children at NPH Bolivia

My name is Escarleth Flores. I’m 30 years old and I do all the purchasing for Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH), Spanish for Our Little Brothers and Sisters, in Bolivia.

When I began working for NPH, I was a volunteer; I accompanied Germán Mercado, our National Director, to pick up the first families. In the first months my work was very different: there were only 11 children living here, together with two caretakers. I was responsible for organizing the personnel and the shopping, but the three of us had to be very flexible; sometimes I cooked for all of us as well! In the following months, a social worker, a cook, and a psychologist joined our team and the responsibilities were shared.

As the family has grown to our current size with 42 children, my shopping list has grown a lot as well. Sometimes it is really hard to find and buy everything in time, with good quality and in the correct amounts! Now we have two rooms to store all the food and I use the computer to keep better control of all my shopping. In the beginning I used to go by taxi to different shops and markets. Now we have a microbus I can use for the larger quantities we need to buy.

Sometimes it is hard to find shops and supermarkets where they treat you well and do a good job. After some bad experiences, I found some reliable stores and I’m always working on improvements. I think this is important for the various departments in our home. We all do our best to enable the children to have a better life and future!

I’m glad I decided to continue working for this organization. A children’s home needs employees who are able to work with love and encouragement and I think I do that.

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