Helps International Incorporated

Filing Period

Jan 1, 2012 to Dec 31, 2012

Signed

Nov 15, 2013

Return Version

2012v2.1

Gross Receipts

$8,781,305

Mission

Major Activities

Activity 2

Onil Stove:In the late 1980's medical teams reported treating an alarming number of burns and respiratory related problems. Indigenous Mayan women cooked inside their homes on an open fire pit with no outside ventilation. The onil stove was developed to reduce respiratory illness and death from excessive smoke inhalation (the leading cause of death in Guatemalan children under the age of 5 according to the World Health Organization), and the occurrence of facial and hand burns, frequently severe, on children caused by the traditional open pit cooking fires used inside of the home. These open pit cooking fires had no ventilation and produced 20-30 times the dangerous level of carbon monoxide. The cooking fires' inefficient burning consumed huge amounts of wood, which contributed to Guatemala's 2% annual deforestation and required women and children to make long treks to gather and carry large, heavy loads of wood, frequently to the detriment of their health. Helps International developed the "onil" stove, a method of cooking that is compatible with traditional methods but without the health risks. The onil stove is an insulated durable stove that sits off of the floor and contains the fire in a clay firebox, thus minimizing the risk of burns to small children. Vented with a galvanized steel chimney, the stove uses efficient burning technology and virtually eliminates smoke and deadly carbon monoxide in the home, resulting in safer childhood development and overall increased health and life expectancy for the entire family. The onil stove uses only 15% of one tree per month, which reduces wood consumption by 70% and has given women back the equivalent of two days a week in time saved from gathering wood, allowing them more time for other activities to benefit the family, including gardening and crop growing.85,000 Cumulative stoves in use since inception in late 1980's1,020,000 - Annually the number of trees saved by using onil stoves.$80 cost per stove.

Activity 3

Community Development, Construction, Education, and Corn Program:1983 consisted of construction teams primarily brought from church communities within the US. As a result of its construction efforts 6 hospitals were renovated, 400 new homes were built for widows and orphans, 10 potable water systems were installed, several airstrips were built, and 1 large 2 story school and 5 smaller schools in Santa Avelina were built.Helps International philosophy has an integrated approach and has a number of programs in which it works with other groups and volunteers that share a mutual commitment to alleviating poverty and its effects in Latin America. Education: A part of Helps community development program focuses on education. Helps educational program is a system of K through Sixth Grade with a long term goal of literacy. The two-story William M. Botsan school in Santa Avelina (Built by Helps in the 1980's) serves as the educational hub for the Mayan Ixil Triangle, and as a model for expansion for the Helps educational initiatives throughout Guatemala.Agriculture (Corn Program):The poverty of Latin America is far-reaching, and Guatemala has the highest poverty level of any nation in the area. 57% of the population are poor and over one quarter of Guatemala's population lives on less than $40 per year, with over 2.9 million people living in abject poverty. Helps focuses on relieving poverty of the indigenous rural poor, which are primarily indigenous Mayan, as this group is Guatemala's most poverty stricken. Today, as in past centuries, the cultivation of maize, known as corn in the English speaking countries, is the main economic "life" of the rural villages and relates to the basic activity of every villager throughout the region. A farmer's family needs approximately 3,600 pounds of corn per year, but the typical yield per year is only 2,700 pounds. Helps devised an agriculture program for growing corn in 2005. The remote village of Santa Avelina, yielded 3.7 times more than the yield from the traditional planting method, and the corn was ready for harvest 2 weeks earlier, which means there could be two growing seasons per year. Helps teaches new methods, but does not use different seed as local people preferred their familiar variety of corn. Helps focuses on modern growing methods, fertilizer, ect. to increase yields.The ability to grow two such improved yields could mean the farmer could feed his family, repay the crop loan, and put additional income into the pocket of the typical family. The impact of this increased yield would be enormous and could be revolutionary in Guatemala. In 2012, Helps continued to implement and monitor this program with the farmers in Santa Avelina.

Filer

EIN

75-1966419