Following a 6 month visit to Argentina in South America in 2004/5, Ros Grant - now the chairman of CDUK, was asked by an Argentine community worker to help to make people aware in the UK of some of the problems that are experienced by the poor in South America, he said "they were the forgotten people by the International community" so Ros wrote to friends in the UK asking for donations for a local soup kitchen - Luz del Alma, a community centre for shanty dwellers in the area of Ezpeleta, near Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The following is an extract from the letter to Ros’s friends
“Imagine standing high upon the side of a busy main road raised above a long and forlorn valley where into the far distance all is a jumble of rusty metal, broken plastic, crooked brick walls, tattered polythene, soggy cardboard and mud. The predominant colour is grey, rust or dirty brown as far as the eye can see, merging bleakly into an horizon of a heavy sky laden with rain.
Out of the jumble of rubble and chaos through a narrow alleyway in between derelict shanty structures came towards me a small boy with his mother. I explained I was taking photos to use in work for change in this area. The woman’s young/old face broke into a smile to show black stumps and missing teeth, the skin of her face pulled tightly across her high cheekbones. She accepted my explanation and told me that many people came here to take photographs and she wondered why because nothing changes?
The weather was cold and wet in early June 2005; winter was on its way. The 21st June is the shortest day and July and August are the coldest months here in the Southern Hemisphere.
How are these people to bear what the future holds in store for them, these forgotten and neglected people already having coped with months of humidity, damp and miserable conditions of total and abject poverty? They have no electricity, one pipe for water – somewhere; no gas, nothing to burn and inches and inches of rain turning the ground into a quagmire of mud.
What future is there here for children?
The water table is high here because the industry of the past, whose use kept it low, is now abandoned and departed, bankrupt, due to ineffective and corrupt previous government. This contaminated land is only a polluted space used by those who are without hope. The people living here are desperate; the atmosphere is hopeless and despairing.
The shanty populations have been moved here from the Capital – Buenos Aires, ‘in order to clean it up’, thousands of families, well hidden from the sight of tourists or the wealthy living in the tree lined avenues and private Barrios of the northern areas of Buenos Aires. Here is to be found the sub culture of the City of Quilmes, a dumping ground for people.”
“These people should work”! - “But there are no jobs!”
Unemployment benefit is approximately $200 Pesos a month – about £40, to keep a family!
The Churches are given some money by government agencies to help feed these people, - between 50 cents and 2-3 Pesos a day. But bread costs 2 Pesos! Some children go to primary schools where they get a midday meal but they are often too malnourished to continue their education on to secondary level and leave school at 11 or 12 years of age or earlier to go onto the streets to beg for money in whatever way they can. In many cases if they return home with little or nothing a beating awaits them!
Some people have not completely lost hope, some young children work collecting rubbish from bins and streets in order to buy books so that they can educate themselves out of total poverty, others survive by using the money they earn to buy drugs to shield them from grim reality.
Drugs are readily available as many drug dealers live in the shanty areas, side by side with those whose struggle for a better life is often an impossible dream in these police ‘no go’ areas and where their own laws prevail.
The Catholic Church does not generally agree with birth control so it is common to see a young woman of perhaps 16 years of age – but looking 40, with several young children begging on the streets.
The problems of AIDS are universal and widespread with universal consequences!
There are no homes here for the elderly; they go onto the streets to die when they can manage no longer! The old middle class in Argentina are still in denial about what has happened to their country, they often close their eyes to the problems of these people; they are still reeling from the shock of the devaluation of the Peso in 2001/2 and adjusting to their new lives, learning to live off a third of what they were used to. They too feel powerless and do not know where to turn; they are still angry and traumatised because all the people, organisations and structures that they felt they should have been able to trust are potentially corrupt.”
On Ros’s return to the UK money began to arrive due to her appeal and she decided to set up a local charity to formalise the proceedings and Compassion Direct UK was formed in 2005.
£1000 needed to be raised and trustees to be found before formal charity registration was possible.
When CDUK began we had an experienced team of four Trustees.
Retired self employed Public Relations Consultant and Trainer; previously Regional Manager, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF); Deputy Chair and Trustee, International Broadcasting Trust (IBT).
Date appointed 10th September 2005
Janet Gilks B Ed. & Adv Dip. (moved from UK to live in Bulgeria in 2008 now acts as consultant for CDUK)
Teacher, Trustee/Director Rugby Bareboards Trust.
Date appointed 10th September 2005
Ian Hampton LLB, DCL – Legal Advisor (resigned July 2007 due to change in domestic circumstances)
Solicitor, criminal litigation, road traffic law, childcare proceedings, Birmingham Racial Awareness Unit & Chairman of Legal Services Commission Committee.
Date appointed 10th September 2005
Patricia Handslip BA DBA – Secretary & Deputy Chairman
Administrator with international work experience within the pro bono volunteer and US commercial market leaders.
Date appointed 10th September 2005
The inaugural meeting of the Trustees was held on Saturday 10th September 2005.
We now have two new Trustees Waseem Mahmood OBE - Media consultant for the UN Judy Ashton - Music Advisory Teacher We would welcome enquiries from interested persons who might like to join our Trustee team and help us to extend our work.
By October 2005 sufficient funds were raised including £500 from the Rotary Club of Banbury. A Governing document was agreed by the Trustees in order for us to apply for charity registration. An application was made to the Charity Commission for England & Wales.
CHARITY REGISTRATION
On the 30th March 2006 Compassion Direct UK became a charity registered by the Charity Commission of England and Wales and is now included on the Central Register of Charities No 1113505.
The charitable objects as defined by the Governing Document accepted by the Charity Commission are ‘for the relief of poverty for children, families and the elderly living in Latin America’.
Charity Registration denotes accreditation and accountability that opens many hitherto closed doors such as the ability to apply to grant making bodies and Trusts and hold public street collections..
"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."
- Albert Schweitzer, physician/Nobel Laureate.
