Compassion Direct UK

Well, things are really getting cracking at Villa El Monte now.

We have bought a new Industrial sewing machine and all sorts of materials and items necessary to set up the sewing workshop which will teach single mother's living on the Villa a new trade and they will be able to sell the items they make to increase their small incomes.

I have spoken to a couple of the mothers and they are really excited to be doing something so positive.

We have also bought 20 tiny chairs and all the equipement necessary to start the young children's 'Jardin' or kindergarten. - see below for example.

Yesterday 28 February 2009 we took 30 schools packs to two different community centres.  Phew!  there were small hands everywhere all wanting pencils and paper as though it was gold dust.  I so wish we could have provided more, but the need is just too great and the demand too large!

Sonia who has been reading and doing drawing with the children will not be able to read until the winter holidays as she works most evenings during the school term as a teacher.  But we think we have a found a suitable new reader to take over for a while, so all is well!

to celebrate the relationship Sonia has built in so short a time she provided cakes.

No photos of Ros handing out school materials as she was too busy!

This  week CDUK have bought 30 Schools Packs to be distributed to some of the children who love in Villa El Monte in Quilmes.

The packs are made up of a note book, folder, pencil, rubber, pencil sharpener ruler and crayons - and pencil cases for the younger children.  We are presenting the packs inside back packs for them to keep things together and for their homework.

We had heard that some children wont start school on time - if at all, because they had not got the necessary equipment.

We will be taking the new packs to the Villa today together with several large bags of clothes, shoes and other useful items

You may remember that one of the aims of CDUK was to encourage local volunteer groups in areas where we began to support projects? One such Group in Quilmes is "Ayduar"  meaning to help!

This Group has been going for a couple of years now and their way of working with their local community is a good one!  They hold at least one Grand Event each year and the PR they receive helps to provde  the things that are needed by the Comador Luz Del Alma that the Group support.

Below is a list of all the items that have been donated since they began to spread the word about the good work that Luz del Alma was doing and their requirements.  Below the list is a further list of the things that the Group have bought with the money they have raised.

Donations to the Group for Luz Del Alma

19 boxes of books

147 boxes of clothing

7 sewing machines

2 printers

1 scanner

1 portable typewritter

1 fire

1 sun blind / awning

2 electric overns

1 Christmas Tree and bag of decorations

1 bag of children's toys

1 Colour TV and stand

1 Video Cassette Player

2 PC's & 1 monitor

22 children's videos

1 galvanised pipe - 4 m

1 Juego de bano

1 porton entrada

1 artefacto de illuinacion

Items the Group have bought with the3money they have raised from fundraising

2007

1 complete window

32 childrens chairs

8 childrens tables

1 desk and chair

1 coat rack

2 cupoboards

2 light tubes

Juegos didacticos: various

2 shelves

7 meters of curtain material

1  set of folding steps

2008

5 shelves and supports for the library

2 Flourescent lights

1 wooden table 2m

2 benches 2m

Over the past couple of years CDUK have refurbished a computer/homework room and provided a food store with shelves - now to be used as a Library.  We have provided security gates for the front of the project and are in the process of  the building of a community room which will be useful for many activities that the Project is currently unable to fulfill.  More news on this later after I have had a chat with the Project Leader Isabel.  See Project page on this website for more information on CDUK Projects.

Our Wind Turbine project for mountain schools has captured the imagination of volunteers and funders alike.

We would like to thank everyone who is raising money for this project - see web page.

However here I would like to thank particularly the generous donations of varing sizes that we have received from the following grant making trusts and charities:

Our grateful thanks go to

The Clara E. Burgess Charity

The Ashworth Charitable Trust

the Al Fyad Charitable Foundation

The Bisgood Charitable Trust

The Jomps Trust

Thank you for helping with our work and for your confidence in our organisation.

Below is a copy of the latest press release to go to midland newspapers on the 4th February for your information

WARWICKSHIRE  CHARITY PARTNERS  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SALTA , ARGENTINA TO SUPPLY WIND TURBINES TO MOUNTAIN SCHOOLS.

The Minister of Education in the province of Salta in the north of Argentina was so impressed that  the people of Warwickshire & Oxfordshire wanted to help supply environmentally friendly energy to  mountain schools on the borders of Argentina and Bolivia that she promised that “for every wind turbine paid for by the charity Compassion Direct UK, the department of education  would organise and pay for the installation of the turbines”.

CDUK have sent 2 turbines to mountain schools in the Puna, many thousands of feet above sea level.  Now that this agreement is in place CDUK are  sending more turbines as funds permit with money generously donated from fundraising by the people of Warwickshire, Birmingham & Oxfordshire. 

Two more turbines are being sent this week.  Each turbine costs approximately £1000.

Ros Grant—Honourary Chairman of CDUK—currently in South America on charity business said “ the mountain people who herd goats, sheep & llamas in remote mountain areas for a living, know that the lives of their children will not change without education.  Although it is an emotional and economic sacrifice to send their children to school, they have helped to build basic schools from adobe bricks many miles from where they live so that the children can be educated together . 

The children leave home - often walking many miles, on Monday mornings for school and stay until Friday when they take the long walk home to help their parents with the animals.  They eat, sleep, work and play looked after by dedicated teachers also working many miles from home.

The mountains of the Puna are mainly barren and dry, temperatures can change from 30-40  degrees daily to zero at night and the schools do not have access to any form of energy for lighting and heating.  The schools can only be reached by 4x4 vehicles usually driven by the boarder guards. Wind is their greatest asset. 

The government of Salta have begun a schools building programme in the mountain areas and the programme is following the provision of electricity, but the programme will take many years to complete.  CDUK are starting work at the other end of the programme  to assist the schools in greatest need”

For more information on the work of CDUK please go to our web site at www.compassiondirect.co.uk. and look at our project pages where photos and a video of the mountain areas can be seen.  CDUK promote environmentally friendly projects abroad because we know that as aware as we are in the UK of the problems of global warming, unless we encourage the developing world to use energy saving measures our own savings are a drop in the ocean.

To make a donation to CDUK please go to www.mycharitypage.com and give on line.

For further information, on line interviews & photographs, please contact Ros Grant, Compassion Direct UK by Skype phone: rosalind.anne.grant  or by e-mail rosinargentina@yahoo.co.uk or  ros@compassiondirect.co.uk .

For interviews on line, send an email with your contact details and Ros will call you back.

www.compassiondirect.co.uk

Charity Registration No. 1113505

 I was amazed to read this new name "Informal cities", for the slums or Villas Miserias recently.

Some of you may have read about Villa 31 in Buenos Aires with plans by the municipal government to cap growth and probably expel thousands of residents of this Villa so that they are able to use the area for commercial development.  Villa 31 is right in the centre of Buenos Aires, it is an eye sore and an embaressment to the city and the land that was claimed by the homeless is worth millions of Pesos to developers!

Nonformal Cities -an other new way of saying it, in Buenos Aires alone constitute upwards of 250,000 'housing units' in 750 communities that over one million people call home!

Hi guys

Well despite a few ups and downs things are getting cracking over here and many of you will have received my Round Robin - to be added to the list send me an email to rosinargentina@yahoo.co.uk.

Below is a picture of one of the industrial sewing machines we bought earlier this year for the young persons leather workshop in Villa Lujan.  I am going to see if we can send leather work to the UK.  This project is now preparing to run a pilot project to see if they can attract more workers for carpentry and ceramics workshops.

The Comador at Luz Del Alma is growing slowly and they have completed all the building work that we funded earlier this year.  As you can see there is some way to go yet, we need more cash, can you help?

I shall be meeting with the Quilmes Group to discuss the way forward here.

I was to have visited Villa Del Monte today to discuss how we could help  but we have had such heavy storms that the person I was to meet there rang and said that the paths were impassable mud so we have had to postpone that meeting.  I shall be going up river to Entre Rios to visit a project which is also supported by St, George's College in December.

The Windmills for Salta Schools continues slowly to proceed!

While I am away the Trustees are having an informal meeting to discuss the future and we have discussions over the Skype phone (with pictures) wonderful technology.

more news as and when

Ros

NEW LOGO

We were so lucky to have a web site designer create a logo for us and everyone seems to like it, so thanks Dave we  really appreciate your gift.

NEW COLLECTING BOX WRAP ROUND

One thing leads to an other....  Len Jenkins in Wales designed our collecting box labels for us some time ago now and he has kindly agreed to redesign them using the new logo and colours, so watch this space!! 

We are fortunate in our friends?

FRIENDS OF CDUK - Something to aspire to!

The trustees agreed that we wanted to recognise certain people who work consistantly in the background to help out and achieve our objectives.  We decided to create the special category of Friend of CDUK.

We are delighted to announce that our first FRIEND is Margaret Challoner - who was asked to send a photo but wouldn't!!  Too modest! 

Margaret has developed the Facebook account for CDUK and is the Face bookPR officer;  she held a Christmas fundraising event last year for us and she was  our top Stroll fundraiser this year.  Margaret has put us in touch with many people who support us and who have joined the organisation and often send really useful ideas for us to develop.

Thank you Margaret you are appreciated and we think you are wonderful.

MORE MONEY TO ARGENTINA

Ros is off to Argentina again on the 11th October and is delighted to be taking three times as much money as last year for existing and new projects.  The bad news is that due to the current economic crisis the value of the pound is lower than it was but we are still sending more money than ever before thanks to everyones hard work and donations.  Talking of money, for those of you who wish to know more about the nitty gritty of CDUK you can find out more about us on the charity commission website.

STROLL FOR STREET CHILDREN

This year we raised over £1600 - including Gift Aid donations, our grateful thanks to everyone who worked hard to get sponsors and who walked on ther day and to the Kineton Volunteer Group who work with Ros to do the organisation to make it run smoothly.

CDUK QUILMES VOLUNTEER GROUP IN BUENOS AIRES

I have just heard that their last event attracted 120 people to raise money for Luz Del Alma - a soup kitchen in Ezpeleta and our first supported project.  As a result of the event someone donated a computer to the project for the homework room that CDUK refurbished last year.

THELMA                                                                           We have had a marvellous donation from Thelma, one of our supporters, who has given us a high quality gazebo - which we used for the Stroll, she also gave us a set of display boards,covered in pictures which she took from the web site.

Thanks so much Thelma your donations will help us to grow and expand our work.

Thelma above.

Kineton volunteers waiting for walkers under the new gazebo, below

NEWSLETTER OR NO NEWSLETTER

Please remember to sign up to this website to read the BLOG so that you can easily be notified when there is news.  While Ros is in Argentina their will not be a biannual news letter as several members who returned their recent questionnaires said that they would be happy to be kept up to date via email.  When Ros returns we will review the news letter.

We will be updating the Blog regularly and will occasionally notify you of updates, BUT we would also like news, ideas, comments from you, so please participate.

Looking forward to hearing from you

Ros