Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
What initially began as something I could do to raise money for my trip to Tanzania with my school, has turned out to be an effort to help the street children in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where my sister is working. If you're wondering 'What happened to Tanzania?', well, it was just a case of being disorganised! I did not hear of any meetings to attend in the school, and eventually I fell behind on the latest information on the trip. In the end, despite being given another chance to re-engage in the trip, I decided the costs would be too much. However, I now believe I have made the right choice and am very happy to be doing something to help the Bolivian kids. I have never run 10K before and just having started on the training I have my work cut out for me!
If you have not heard of Friends of Alalay, they are a charity that aims to help clear kids off the streets of Bolivia to give them somewhere to sleep, food and a chance to explore, to develop an interest that every child should be able to.
Friends of Alalay do various projects such as:
1) Renovating a cabin at Alalay's out-of-town centre (the 'aldea') so that small groups of UK school students and teachers can visit Bolivia and spend several days in joint activity with the ex-street kids, such as drama, dance, music, art, English, Spanish, helping in the new vegetable garden and so on.
2) Setting up a fully equipped medical room within this cabin for caring for sick children at the aldea.
3) Establishing a programme to teach English to 100 kids at Alalay in 2010 - English is vital for their future education and job prospects.
4) Introducing new bursaries to help older kids through their vocational and university training
5) Buying a herd of pigs for the street kids to care for and sell
The charity has a three stage process from seeing the street kids to them leaving the charity with future job prospects.
Alalay works by involving the kids in three stages of activity:
- Firstly, street workers talk and play with them in the streets, building up trust and a relationship with the children and encouraging them to come to Alalay.
- Secondly, the children can choose to enter a “welcome house” in the city, where they will learn life skills such as washing, wearing shoes, looking after belongings (they may never have owned anything before) and so on. Depending on each child, they may stay here for just a few weeks or in some cases many months, and may also attend a local school.
- Finally, when they move to the aldea (a Centre about 40 minute’s bus journey outside town) they may start at school, and begin to lead a more “normal” family life. When they are old enough, they will also start technical training – either a beauty course back in the city of Santa Cruz (including hairdressing, manicure and beauty treatment), or a car mechanic’s course, wood working and textile work. They will also be encouraged to go on to further education such as university, so that they have the skills to get a future job.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
So please dig deep and donate now.
