Fly The Phoenix, Worcester, United Kingdomhttp://www.thephoenixprojects.org
Target: £15,271.00
Raised so far: £16,089.00
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Fly The Phoenix, Worcester, United Kingdomhttp://www.thephoenixprojects.org
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Secondary education in the pueblos jovenes around Arequipa will be provided to all children in their own communities. Presently the few that can get an education have to walk miles each day.
According to INEI an average family in this region need $75/week for basic foodstuffs and essentials, yet in reality the average income is just $20/week for the whole family leaving a shortfall of $55 each week. This low income means there isn't enough money for food, health and certainly not an education, which isn't free in Peru.
We make education free. Our work in the schools improves the quality of the education received by reducing the student-teacher ratio, providing consistency when government teachers are unavailable and giving fun, interactive lessons rather than the usual copying that they are often set. We also provide a hot meal and a piece of fruit every day which improves health and fills tummies allowing a child to concentrate on learning, growing and having fun!
Education is the key to development and that is exactly what we are providing. And education to help communities develop out of poverty. But, it can also be looked at simply. You had the right start in life, a good education, food, health, a childhood. We are giving that to every child we work with. By using in-country sustainable plans these projects and the communities will learn to develop out of poverty alone, not by handouts, not by us telling them what to do, by doing it themselves.
Dom Williams
As we come close to US Mother's Day on May 12, we are focusing on supporting our Moms in Peru!
In Perú this month we have had an exciting addition to our nutritional program and provided by the Government! The Government irregularly send food to our project in Perú, if there isn't enough food then we cover the extra food costs as the children cannot manage without the food they are given in school. On top of the main meal, we also provide fruit everyday to each child to ensure they are given enough nutrition through vitamins and minerals.
This month, the Government has added the addition of powered milk to the nutritional programe! Powdered milk, with water added, can provide a plethra of nutrition for the children. It contains carbohydate, protein, calcium, amino acids, vitamins and minerals which will boost the children's health incredibly. This new addition to the children's diet, prepared by Phoenix cooks, will affect the children a lot and we hope to see health improving over the next few months.
Not only does the food program support the children greatly, it also lifts a weight off the minds of their Moms. All Moms want is the best for their children, and this program is giving them that.
We are part of Global Giving's Mother's Day campaign this year, celebrating Moms in the US and Guatemala through one gift. If you would like to support Mom's in Guatemala, whilst gifting your Mom a handmade scarf and set of worry dolls then please take a look at our gift:
http://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/gifts-for-good/detail.html?projectGift.id=124
Thank you
Dom Williams
This Wednesday, get ready for an exciting way to make your donation BIG. Keep an eye on your emails on Tuesday afternoon for an announcement on how to make your donation can grow!
In Peru, the communities and surrounding area of our schools have been severely affected by the unseasonal heavy rains. However, unperturbed, Summer School continued through January and February, with extra classes for the children who weren't so successful in their exams at the end of 2012 to try to get ahead for the new term.
Sometimes the children, for various reasons, aren't successful in completing the year first time, but that doesn't stop us! With one-on-one classes focusing on the areas where they struggle and a little bit of attention and confidence building we know they will be successful next year!
Look out for our next report on Tuesday afternoon with our exciting announcement and plans for 2013!
Thank you for your continued support.
Dom
Dom Williams
With the new school year rapidly approaching in our schools in Perú, we are continuing with our summer school program, with the children going over the basics of mathematics and language, readying themselves for the new term starting in March.
This February, The Phoenix Projects and our charity Fly The Phoenix are launching Corporate February, where we are aiming to create partnerships with the Corporate Social Responsibility programs of large and small businesses, so we can work together for the future of all our projects in Latin America.
Business can play a huge role in educating children and supporting communities and we would love to expand our portfolio of like-minded companies working with us to achieve our longterm goals of sustainable education in marginalised communities in Latin America.
If you, family and friends are part of any business who would like to get involved, please do donate, and share the link of our program for Perú. Even a phonecall to your manager or Head Office can make all the difference!
cheers
Dom Williams
2013 is upon us, quicker I think than we all imagined, although not quick enough for the kids, eager for the new term to start in March. Though we havn't stopped, we have vacation classes for those kids who need that little bit extra, to prepare them for the new school year.
This year, your very kind donations will be going towards the salaries of our local teachers and will also be helping our new Plan Imersion, a scheme which allow secondary students to get a feel of what jobs are available in the future in Arequipa. From where they are from, the Pueblos Jovenes in the desert, they know very little of what is on offer, so we will bring Arequipa to them, have open days with various members of industry to come and talk about what is on offer.
We will also be investing in Plan Chacra, which moves towards our sustainability model, by investing in income-generating sustainable plans, including agriculture and livestock, which in the future, will bring in income for the schools.
Finally, we will also be running various charity challenges in Perú, so if you want to come down, see where your money is going, lend a hand and get involved in a charity challenge, please do email us on sarah@thephoenixprojects.org and have a look at the website on www.thephoenixprojects.org
Many thanks for making 2013 a special year, in the past, present and indeed future!
cheers
Dom Williams
2012 has been a good year for our projects in Perú, despite the numerous teacher strikes and disruptions to the children's education, though we got there in the end, with final exams currently being finished off.
2013 brings us to ever-more expansion in our education goals for the communities, with a lot of work to be put into secondary education, with Plan Immersion (whereby we introduce opportunities and examples of future employment by bringing in business owners to talk with the children about opportunities in Arequipa, something they would never have had without further education).
We will also continue to reinforce primary education, especially giving the vital one-to-one attention for a few kids, and also continue employing local teachers, the only way to make a project sustainable in the long-run. Also, thanks to our ongoing Christmas Appeal, we will hopefully be able to feed all our kids daily.
Thanks to your ever-present donations, past, present and future and Happy Holidays to you all
cheers
Steve Gwenin
We would like to inform you about an exciting new development with this project in Peru. Over the past six years, we have been promoting the basic human rights of full education, food and employment in communities in Peru by supporting schools with one teacher in each and investing in secondary education. This project, in conjunction with others in Latin America, was known as the GVI Phoenix projects.
Funds have been raised through the GVI Charitable Trust to cover project costs, which includes daily food and fruit, local salaries, educational utensils and construction work. Global Vision International (GVI) volunteers were also used to help with teaching in these schools.
From 2013, these Phoenix Projects will be running independently as a new charity, Fly The Phoenix. If you wish to make future donations, please do continue to do so through this GlobalGiving page and have a look at the Fly the Phoenix website - http://www.thephoenixprojects.org/. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported the communities in Peru through the GVI Charitable Trust, we really cannot thank you enough for your generosity. We wish Fly the Phoenix all the best in the future.
The Phoenix Projects believe that full education, food and employment are basic human rights, and have spent the past six years promoting these rights in communities in Perú by supporting schools with one teacher in each and investing in secondary education.
During this time, Global Vision International (GVI) volunteers were used to help with the teaching aspect for The Phoenix Projects, who themselves raised funds through the GVI Charitable Trust to cover project costs, which includes daily food and fruit, local salaries, educational utensils and construction work.
From 2013, since The Phoenix Projects have set up their own charity, Fly The Phoenix, donations will be channelled to this charity and not the GVI Charitable Trust. We would like to take this opportunity to thank GVI and the GVI Charitable Trust.
Alice Hawkes
For the past three months the children's education has been affected by country-wide teacher strikes, though we have still managed to get in and carry on teaching, despite this hindrance! We continue with the food program and the children receive their utensils that they need for enhanced learning. Our local teachers we employ are obviously not involved in the strikes so continue to work as normal.
We are moving towards the end of the year which means the final exams and we are confident that most children will pass onto the next grade in 2013. Those that finish primary school will receive their schoilarships for secondary school and this, coupled with Plan Imersion, whereby we promote the opportunities these children can have in Arequipa.
The future is looking bright, thanks to all the generous donors!
Alice Hawkes
Recently, we were lucky enough to have 7 members of the GVI team in Perú who took to conquer the Atacama Desert. We trekked 35 kilometers in two days along a beautiful Peruvian coast, raising money for the GVI Charitable Trust. The money raised through this challenge will continue providing the children of Perú with daily fruit and lunch. Although the challenge was tough, as we walked through the driest place on earth, in temperatures of 40+, we were amazed at the beautiful scenery that engulfed us. Surrounded by mountains on one side with a seemingly never-ending ocean on the other, we felt we must have been the first people to have ever stepped foot on that land.
This is going to help our aim of providing long-term, sustainable help by improving basic education and access to water in small communities, "los pueblos jovenes", around the city of Arequipa, Peru.
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Aoife Bulman
This year saw the introduction of 'Plan Immersion', whereby we introduced the secondary school children who have received scholarships and materials, to different types of work they can achieve in Arequipa. At this point in time life in the Pueblos Jovenes is their future. These types of jobs included: administration work, mechanical work, engineer work, managerial work, sales and marketing work.
By paying for transport and organising trips, we can open the children’s eyes to a brighter, more achievable future, thanks to donations. Over the next five years, we anticipate 200 more children entering secondary school and further education, thanks so continued donations.
Aoife Bulman
Throughout the majority of schools in South America, fostering creativity in students is either not present in, or not a priority of the curriculum. If you walk into a normal classroom, you will see students doing a lot of copying off of the blackboard. When these same students are asked to write a story about a cat named Jinx, they stare at you blankly, because they have not been trained to work the right side of their brains. We have been working in local schools in Peru for the last 6 years, sending volunteers into the classrooms to support the local teachers.
In order to get out of the cycle of abject poverty in these towns, the team in Peru believes that the children need to be trained to think independently. As Walter Lippman once said, “When all think alike, then no one is thinking!” With this in mind, the staff and volunteers at GVI Phoenix Peru took it upon themselves to start introducing the concepts of creativity and imagination to the classroom. This has been a multi-pronged venture. First, they redesigned the gym and art curriculum for all six grades of primary school. In this new curriculum, the children now have weeks of theatre lessons, weeks of dance lessons, and more challenging art projects. Next, the team in Peru took it upon themselves to change the environment that the children are working in to make it more conducive to new ideas and sparks of imagination. In March, the volunteers finished painting the entire Inicial (elementary) classroom with fanciful birds, unicorns, lizards, and other mythical creatures, and the kids can’t get enough. The team also started reading time with the children, and will read one page of a story book, and then have the children create the ending for the story. It’s a fantastic exercise for them to learn how to think independently.
The local teachers in Arequipa are overwhelmed with high numbers of students and extremely low resources. Being able to support them in this way has been an incredible experience for. The teachers themselves have now started incorporating some of these imaginative techniques into their daily teaching, which is fantastic news, because it means this program is gaining a level of sustainability, which is the ultimate goal.
Aoife Bulman
Later on this March, a group of challengers will be taking part in a two-day charity challenge to raise funds for our projects, which are situated on the outskirts of Arequipa, Peru.
Unusually heavy rains devastated many families in the area, which are home to many of the children where we work, providing free education. Under normal circumstances these families would not be able to afford this education for their children.
The aim of this challenge is to enable us to put funds together to assist families whose homes and livelihoods were destroyed at the beginning of the year.
Aoife Bulman
Later on this March, a group of challengers will be undertaking a 2 day charity challenge to raise funds for our projects on the outskirts of Arequipa, Peru.
Unusual heavy rains have devastated many families in the area. The homes of the children in which we work. The children's education is paramount. We offer them a free education in which under normal circumstances they could not afford.
With this challenge, we are putting funds towards the children's birthday presents for the year. Especially as the rains at the start of the year ruined many livelihoods and homes. It is important to let the remain children and these gifts will offer happiness to those children affected.
Ross Deans
We would like to share the most recent trustee report from the GVI Charitable Trust. This report covers the six month period from July to December 2011.
We are delighted to share that this has been by far our most successful period, raising in six months nearly as much as we did the whole of the previous year. This increase in funding has brought a corresponding increase in the impact we have been able to create on our programs around the world.
During this period we have invested in sustainable education across Latin America including support for the elderly in Guatemala and income generation schemes to support education in Honduras and Ecuador. In Mexico we have worked with a community to establish a recycling centre and in Kenya our partners in Mombasa will now realise their goal of seeing impoverished students through to completion of the primary education earning recognised qualifications for the first time.
These are just a few highlights of an amazing, productive and rewarding six months. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and played a crucial role in these achievements.
Ross Deans
At the end of 2011 we celebrated the anniversaries of our schools in the Phoenix project in Peru in both communities Maldonado and Triunfo. We have been working in the schools since 2006. It's such a treat to be able to see the parents, teachers, volunteers, and kids all come together in celebration of the great work these schools are doing.
Maldonado was practically bouncing on its foundations from all of the dancing the kids were doing...not to mention the free for all scramble when candy came showering down on them from teachers and volunteers alike! Triunfo was covered wall to wall in streamers, balloons, and glittery posters! The kids from Triunfo put on a choreographed traditional dance that was the absolute highlight of the party.
Congratulations to everyone at both schools and everyone who has supported us along the way to make this possible.
Dom Williams
Thanks to funds raised for this project, we are able to keep traditions alive in our communities, by paying for traditional dance costumes and transport so the children can partake in dance competitions, growing in self-esteem and keep tradition strong. For the past month selected kids have been spending every spare moment practicing dancing, even during recreo! What for? This Sunday both schools, Truinfo and Maldonado, participated in a dance competition! Maldonado (wearing the red outfits) was first of the two schools to take the stage and did an exceptional job dancing a traditional dance from Cusco.
Theirs was the most complicated choreographed we had seen yet that day! Triunfo shortly followed and did an equally fantastic job with Erica, one of our second graders, participating as well. The kids from both schools were nothing but smiles, and sweat, after being able to show off their hard work and awesome dance moves. We are also so proud to say that Triunfo won 2nd place!!
What does this mean? That they had to keep on dancing. The following Monday, October 31, the kids once again put on the traditional dress and danced their hearts out in hopes of winning the competition. Stay tuned for the results!
Dom Williams
Here in Peru, the Day of the Student fell on Friday September 23. To celebrate we took the children from the communities we work in, Maldonado and Triunfo, on a field trip to Quiscos, a park with a natural hot spring about 40 minutes away. The kids, volunteers, and profesoras were in heaven! It was amazing to be able to spend the day playing with the kids, some who have never even been in the water before...we do work in a desert!
The kids were given the afternoon to run around, splash in the water, and to just be kids… and you know it’s a success when not a single kid cried! To eat everyone was provided a lunch as well as fruit, some soda, and something sweet for the ride home. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported this project helping to make events like this possible.
Dom Williams
Our schools at Truinfo and Maldonado in Peru are definitely feeling Spring Fever. Right when the weather began to get even warmer, the teachers began their decorating frenzy and have transformed the schools. Flowers, birds, and bright colours hang all around the classroom, even from the ceilings!
The kids have been loving it as well, they have done many art activities around the theme and have put their work on the classroom walls to brighten up the spaces even more.
Dom Williams
This month we celebrated the 14th anniversary of the Victor Maldonado school. All of the children got dressed up in traditional outfits and performed dances that they had learned specially with the local dance teacher. After weeks of practicing they finally got to show off what they had learned.
The kids loved it and the dances were all amazing! All the volunteers, staff and teachers joined in too with an impressive performance of "Shake your tail feather".
Maybe not quite up to the standard of the kids but it certainly got a few laughs! We also had some singing from grades 1 and 2 and a special performance from Naomi and her sister, Daniela, who for two little girls, have the most incredible voices.
After all of the performances "hora loca" began, which certainly was crazy! There were whistles, balloons, confetti, lots of party games and most importantly - a clown! Everyone got involved and there were smiling faces all round. After this, everyone dug in to some well-deserved lunch. An unforgettable, action-packed day for everyone.
Dom Williams
Katy is a happy and kind 14-year-old girl who attends one of our schools here in Arequipa, Peru. Katy has a learning disability and a facial disfigurement. She also has a huge smile and a cheerful disposition. Everyday Katy is able to work 1-1 with a volunteer. Katy is currently on a 1st grade level and while she may be behind, she has an incredible work ethic.
She has shown so much progress in the last year! We are able to provide many kids who need 1-1 work in our schools in Peru thanks to everyone who supports the project. If these kids didn’t have their own volunteers they may not even be in school at all. The local teachers already have two grades to work with and unfortunately, a special needs kid cannot get the attention they deserve. Thank you to all those volunteers who have worked with Katy and the other kids in the past and for everyone who has donated towards this project, now and in the future!
Dom Williams
Talks are underway for starting our own secondary school whereby funds raised on this page will go towards paying for teachers to give secondary education to the children. We have tried this on our project in Honduras and seen great results so we are very keen to expand the initiative across the projects.
We currently give scholarships to the children although this new plan will be more sustainable in the long run making sure that more children have access to Secondary Education. This will be entirely funded through the GVI Charitable Trust.
Dom Williams
Support on the project is continuing as ever and are seeing great progress with the children. We did have 6 kids who were falling behind and had to be removed from the class, thanks to extra support we have been able to bring them up to speed so that they can continue at the level they should be at.
The Children face many difficulties in the Pueblos Jovenes which can affect their education so it is great to see that with continued support, understanding and patience the kids can continue and progress as they need to.
All three communities in which we work are seeing tremendous advances and upon hearing from the children who are now in Secondary School they are passing their exams with excellent marks, fantastic news!
Dom Williams
To spread our knowledge and experience in education in the desert, we have expanded into two new communities around Arequipa, where the schools have limited funds, teachers and utensils. By increasing teachers numbers and bringing in food programs, the children are now receiving better education and a full meal each day.
Dom Williams
As we finish 2009, yet more parents have decided that once primary school is over, their children should continue to secondary school, so with our help with utensils and other costs, this dream will become reality in 2010. Many thanks for everyone's support over the years...finally, we are making headway in the desert around Arequipa. Happy New Year cheers
Dom
Greetings. Our schools in Ecuador have begun the new scholastic year well, with new children now heading off to secondary school, and previous kids moving up a grade, which is a great achievment. To start fundraising for next year, I will be embarking on a Charity Challenge this weekend in Guatemala, climbing 4 volcanoes in 6 days, so please, if you can, spare a penny or two to help raise funds for such a good cause. cheers
Dom Williams
I have recently just returned from Peru and had many discussions about how to better our secondary school system. At the moment, we supply our secondary school students with the supplies they need for further education. I plan, over the next 2 years, to implement the plan we have trialled in Honduras, where we pay for secondary school teachers to come to the community. It works and it is a highly sustainable way to increase education in these areas.
Dom Williams
The new secondary school term started in Peru and all the children have received their necessary utensils to proceed with their education. Exciting times.
Dom Williams
2009 sees us expanding into new communities around Arequipa and also in Colca Canyon, so more children to educate and put through secondary school. 2008 saw many children graduate to secondary school in our projects and with us supplying the needed utensils, they can move onwards an upwards.
Dom Williams
This year we embarked on a new secondary school scholarship scheme in the communities we work in Peru, with the educational items needed for the children to continue their education. We have also seen new faces in the schools, desparate for more educational reinforcement so 2009 beckons with even more enthusiasm
Andy Woods-Ballard
Following the devastating earthquake in Peru we have had a shift of focus for some of our funding, however we now have a number of standing orders set up that are already providing long term scholarships. With a push and looking at the overall success of our fundraising for Ecuador we hope to be able to provide for the secondary school that can change the lives of so many children.