Woman strives to help some of world’s neediest
Karen Brotea invests time, money in helping Ecuadorian community
BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Karen Brotea, of Sheffield Mews in Sayreville, has participated in the Rotary Club’s Homes of Hope project for the last two years. In July, she and other club members went to San Pablo, Ecuador, to help turn the poor village into a self-sufficient entity.

SAYREVILLE — It takes a village to build a village.

That is the philosophy behind Homes of Hope, a project started by the Rotary Club, an international service organization with a local chapter in Sayreville and South Amboy.

Karen Brotea, of Sheffield Mews on Main Street, has participated in the Homes of Hope project for the last two years. In July, she spent two weeks in the village of San Pablo, Ecuador.

A Sayreville resident since March, the 57-year-old previously lived in Edison. But the mother of two grown children never stays in one place for long.

“I worked in India, traveling to Nepal to trek the Himalayas,” Brotea said. “There I saw so much poverty it was overwhelming.”

She has been married to Romanian native Cornel Brotea for 11 years; the couple wed in Bucharest and honeymooned in Transylvania.

“I just had a chance to visit Prince Vlad Dracu’s castle,” she said. “Yup, Dracula.”

Though Brotea has only been involved with the Rotary Club for two years, she has spent nearly a lifetime offering a helping hand to those who need it, starting as a nurse’s assistant, which used to be referred to as a candy striper or pinky, when she was 14.

The Homes of Hope project not only builds homes, it also builds communities and then teaches those within the community to be self-sufficient.

“[The villagers] must take part in all that we do, and also must pay a fraction of the costs so they are committed to bettering themselves,” Brotea said. “They are very proud of what they have accomplished and we are proud of them too.”

Homes of Hope was organized in 2001 by Doug Merritt, a Rotary member from another chapter. While the project began with just the construction of homes in poor villages throughout the world, it quickly expanded into building community infrastructures.

During Brotea’s most recent visit to San Pablo, two physicians accompanied the group and held a clinic in the village that attended to 100 people each day.

“First we saw the people of our village, then we opened up the clinic to the townspeople nearby,” she said. “There is a lot of malnutrition and disease, and the people do not have enough money to pay for medical visits and supplies.”

About 140 people live in San Pablo, with 80 of those being children, Brotea said.

“[At the clinic], we saw a little girl that was 1-year-old and weighed only 5 pounds,” she added.

Chris Karcher, a spokesperson with the Rotary Club, said 14 suitcases filled with medications to treat more than 700 patients were donated by corporate sponsors.

“Electricity has been installed in the village homes,” she said. Future goals include education and helping to provide jobs and a source of income.

The Rotary’s Homes of Hope project has even drawn the attention of some prominent political figures in that part of the world. When word got back to Ecuadorian President Alfredo Palacio and former President of Spain Felipe Gonzalez, they decided to pay the service organization a visit.

“They stopped by the site and had lunch with us,” Brotea said. “They wanted to hear more about the project.”

Karcher noted that 100 percent of donations to the Homes of Hope Project go toward those they are helping, which means volunteers are required to pay their own way, including airfare, food, lodging and transportation.

Despite the expenses, Brotea said it’s important for volunteers to get to the locations where they are trying to help, despite actually doing more work at home.

“Ninety percent of the work we do is done here,” she said. “I go out and do presentations to clubs and things like that so we can get donations.”

She said getting to San Pablo is still essential “just so they have the understanding that we’re there to help them.”

And with every dollar, every house and every helping hand, little communities like San Pablo can move toward being able to take care of themselves, with hopes they will one day be able to help others, she said.

“We’re trying to get them on their feet,” Brotea said. “And we’re hoping they’ll be able to pass it along to other communities there.”

Despite her ongoing work collecting donations for San Pablo and plans to return for another visit next year, Brotea said it’s just as important to help here in America. Currently, the Rotary Club is soliciting donations to aid those affected by Hurricane Katrina and is working on numerous other projects.

Still, as a citizen of planet Earth, helping those in another country is actually just like helping a neighbor, she noted.

“Helping your local community first is important, but we also must reach out across the globe,” Brotea said. “I know I can never make a huge impact, but to help just one person is more gratifying than I can ever express.”

For information about the Homes of Hope project, contact Chris Karcher at (801) 547-0928.