Compassion Direct UK

Single mother's learning a trade to support thier children -left

CDUK are helping this Group to become self sufficient and to assist other mothers to learn similar skills from their collegues.  We are working with the Municipalidad - local council, to provide safe electrical provision as currently the wiring hangs down from the walls and is dangerous to all.

 HISTORY

CDUK agreeed to set up a sewing workshop at this project in 2009 to help single mothers with dependent children make a living and also to equip a kindergarten.  We recently bought two industrial sewing machines.

And here is one of them............

A retired baker, Carlos and his wife Lita - pictured left, were living in a small space in a dry area of an old abattoir on Villa El Monte, an ancient shanty town near the River Plate, they had lost their home and their jobs as a result of the devaluation of the peso in 2002. 

Carlos - a baker, began to make cheap bread to sell to people on the villa and saved the small profits he made to to create temporary roof shelters inside the abattoir so that they could use some of the derelict space for a kindergarten and community room.

The old roof leaked and the building was full of rubbish and rubble and flooded frequently.  Eventually Red Cross Argentina whose members had passed by to give health clinics, and who knew of Carlos and Lita's wonderful work got in touch with Red Cross Italy who  funded the building of a new roof on the Abattoir, plastered the walls and provided some electricity and toilet facilities.  Red Cross Argentina got in touch with CDUK to see if we could support this group further.

 Carlos whose face beams in pride and pleasure each time he talks of his new domain, somehow needs with the help of his wife Lita,to make the new area useful to residents.

 He has moved his old oven into one section and when Ros from CDUK saw it it was full of newly baked pizzas.  Other wise they had only a few tables and chairs in a vast empty space.   CDUK are helping Carlos and Lita to create a useful community area in this building.

CDUK have bought all the cottons and materials, scissors etc that are needed to start the new sewing workshop.  The first classes have been held and the mother's are really enthusiastic to be doing something so posative.

It is very difficult for single mother's to get work to support their families once potential employers know where they live and that they have dependent children.  The sewing workshop will help these women to learn a trade and make money to support their families.

Below - Lita and volunteer choosing materials at a warehouse for the new project.

May, 2009 we bought 20 small wooden chairs and loads of the equipment necessary for the kindergarten.

Left, photo of one of the tiny chairs where we were kindly given a large discount by 'Mr Pino' in Quilmes.

Below, Carlos and Lita unpacking the equipment that CDUK bought to set up the new kindergarten.  Behind them is the old and dangerous wiring that CDUK hope to replace working in partnership with the local council.

We are so sorry to say that Carlos had a stroke and is now unable to walk and is being fed through a tube.  This kind and generous man needs all your good wishes to help him on a road to recovery.

Ros from CDUK collected and delivered dozens of bags of donated clothing and boxes of children's books for after school reading and even a great bag of soft toys.  She has arranged for an English teacher - Sonia to go to the Commador (Soup kitchen) once a week to read to the children after school.  And here she is.....

Below Sonia with her enraptured audience at her first story telling session  Feb 2009

Enraptured faces.  As Antonio the volunteer project leader - back left, told me "they just need someone to give them a little time and attention"

We discovered that some of the children were not able to return to school after a holiday as they did not have what they needed, so we bought 30 school bags and put inside, pencils, rubbers, rulers, folders, paper.  Ros was unable to take photos as she was inundated by small hands and pushing children who did not want to be left out.  But they will be going back to school fully equiped to learn!

Below: Two grandmothers preparing the evening milk and bread for the children when they return from school

"I have to wait here every night while she does this"

 Hundreds of thousands of people live in the poverty stricken villas miserias -

shanty towns,  surrounding the city of Quilmes near  Buenos Aires, Argentina.  

Fundacion Padre Luis Farinello works in Villa Lujan, in Quilmes.

CDUK have provided funding to buy

 2 Industrial Sewing Machines, some

leather and a fire so that project workers

 can work during the winter.   

This workshop helps young people to

learn the skills necessary to make a living

 in a country of severe under-

employment.  

 The small ammount of money that

these workers earn making leather

 purses, handbags, key rings to sell

 to tourists in the tree lined  streets

 of Buenos Aires, may be all that

 suports their families.

CDUK are currently looking for funding for a larger and very significant sister project in the same area. 

 Padre Farinello has made available a large building on the Villa where we hope to encourage more shanty dwellers to get involved in a carpentary workshop, a ceramics workshop and a glass - vitriofusion workshop a sewing workshop, a black smitth and metal workshop. 

This project will be much more and will have sports links as well as psychologists and life skills teachers.  For more information  project please contact Ros who can give you more details ros@compassiondirect.co.uk

STOP PRESS:  We are fortunate to be recieving part funding of $30,000 from Exotix Ltd for this new project.  www.exotix.co.uk

LEATHER GOODS FOR SALE IN THE UK

We are now able to send 2 kilo boxes of assorted leather goods to the UK for sale by local groups who wish to raise money to help the leather workshop.

Contact rosinargentina@yahoo.co.uk for further details. Below is a sample of some goods sent recently

 Hope you like the colour of my kitchen wall?

Prices vary due the cost of postage which is £25 for 2 kilos,

 so contact Ros to discuss if you are interested.

This shanty house in Villa Lujan is home to 5 families and could be where some of the leather workers live.

 Antonio is lucky , he eats twice a day at a soup kitchen in the shanty area of Ezpeleta south of Buenos Aires, He is healthy now but we want him to have a future with hope.

Six years ago Isabel and her husband Aurelio moved to a disused rubbish dump and built a home. Like thousands of others they had lost their homes and jobs due to the devaluation of the Argentine peso in 2001/2 when incomes fell by 70% and 450,000 jobs were lost.

 “It was as though the whole country had been made redundant overnight!,

They decided to make changes in the area & with local help ‘built a basic centre to feed the children.

Now the project feeds up to 200 children twice a day with food provided by the Catholic Charity Caritas; aided by 32 local volunteers who cook & clean & hold special needs & kindergarten classes for children & groups for teenagers teaching  maths, writing, guitar & film making. 

Below, some of the volunteers who feed the children at Luz Del Alma

CDUK have set up a local group of professional Quilmes residents who hold regular fundraising events to support Luz Del Alma. and assist them with emergencies. The  Group - "Ayudar", work with journalists to help change the image of the shanty areas,currently seen only as places where drugs are exchanged & robberies & muggings are hatched.    

See Blog entry for list of everything that the local group have provided to date.

"Ayudar" are currently collecting books for a bibliotecha - library ,and have donated several computers and sewing machines.

  “Luz del Alma has no income. Their needs have to be paid for by the sale of donated second hand goods at local fairs. Two years ago, their underground water pump broke in the height of summer and it was two months before they could raise enough money to pay for the repair.   "Now we are able to assist them with such emergencies". 

 Compassion Direct UK have given money to begin building a dormitory for street children over the existing community room and we have  finished building a children’s homework room and a dried food store and provided security gates at the front of the project and a side wall.

 Luz Del Alma is a real success story as they are now supported by their own local group leaving CDUK free to move on to other things. Audar hoped to continue CDUK's objectives to…

 STOP PRESS: CDUK BUY TWO MORE TURBINES FOR SALTA 

The high mountains of Salta on the northern boundaries of  Argentina & Bolivia host poverty and little educational  provision.

 Access to the mountain areas is by foot, by donkey, or  4 x 4 transportation with border guards. 

 Local people build schools - single rooms, of adobe bricks. 

Children leave their parents on Mondays for school returning on Fridays, they eat, learn, play, and sleep in the schools with their teachers.   

Daily temperatures can change from 35 degrees to zero at night.  

These barren areas have no power for heat or light.  Almost nothing grows here and all water is drawn from wells.  

It is an emotional & commercial sacrifice for parents  giving up their children to schools miles away from the isolated  mountains, where they make their living by herding Llamas & making wool & cloth.

Compassion Direct UK is raising funds to buy Wind Turbines for schools in these areas with no access to energy . 

The mountains of the high puna.

Wind Turbines are approximately £1000 each, depending upon the exchange rate at the time.  We have supplied Wind Turbines to 2 mountain schools and are currently working in partnership with the Education Department of Salta Province & Makiargentina on a pilot project and have delivered two more turbines for installation.  When this new system is completed sucessfully we hope to deliver many more turbines as funds permit. 

The Minister of Education, Prof. Maria Ester Altube has promised to fund the installation of every turbine that CDUK provide for these schools.

With your help

we can energise schools without harming the environment.

Please make a donation to help with this project on http://www.mycharitypage.com/  

Compassion Direct UK is working with an English  speaking public school

 in Quilmes near Buenos Aires. 

Liliana Schwab is the Community  Liaison Teacher at the school .  

The outreach work she organises with her pupils is truly wonderful.

While Ros - the Chairman was in Argentina in 2007she went to a party held

by the  College for  60 orphaned children.  Groups of children painted

a mural to hang  round the quad, and later received   ice creams and

Christmas Gifts.    

A memorable

afternoon

 for  everyone.

The following week the school hired a van to deliver 7 enormous

 boxes of useful items that they had collected to CDUK's project ‘Luz

del Alma’ including 20 volumes of the Spanish edition of

Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Ros our Chairman, hopes to be visiting Entre Rios - an area of

extreme poverty  in Argentina  with Liliana in June 2009 to

 look at projects there that we can  support in the future.

CDUK sent 130 recycled computers - with all the bells and whistles,

to Africa. Why Africa when we work for South America?

 It's a long story; they were collected for South America but

insurmountable problems with customs and various regulations,

which despite extensive research beforehand, only came to light

later, meant that we were left with 130 computers in a container all

ready to go! The computers had been donated for charity.  So, we

sent 30 via the Ghana Association in Leicester to schools and

projects in Ghana, Africa and 100 via BR Environmental - another

Leicester based organisation affiliated to the Groundwork Trust, to

worthy projects in other parts of Africa. 

No thanks, we are not collecting any more at the moment!!