Friends of Alalay (Santa Cruz)

Today the Bolivian President Evo Morales came to Santa Cruz, played football and met the Alalay children at the official opening of our socio-sporting schools project!

Four ex-players of the Real Madrid team played a friendly match against a team composed of players from Bolivia’s 1994 World Cup team and Morales himself (seen sixth from the right in the top line in the photo above).

Two socio-sporting schools are opening in the region today, both run by Alalay with help from the Real Madrid Foundation. The schools have already been very successful in La Paz and El Alto, directly benefiting 500 children and young people, and having an indirect impact on another 2,000 children in both cities. Through playing football the youngsters work to cover certain “life skills” within the broad areas of social, their rights, education, physical and technical prowess.

I am pleased to say that the Bolivian team won 4-2! Read more about the visit and grand opening of the project here (in Spanish).

With their general election this coming Sunday, Bolivia is a busy place right now anyway. But Alalay in Santa Cruz is busier than most. Their Real Madrid sponsored socio-sporting school (read more about the project here) is due to open later this week… And as well as this,  Alalay’s regional co-ordinator Ximena Rojas Landivar is one of the main organisers of an International Street Children’s Conference, bringing together many different organisations from around the World which work with highly vulnerable street children and adolescents. The conference aims to share statistics, experiences and ideas whilst continuing to develop vital links between organisations and offering a stronger voice to advocate for the rights of these children. More information and photos of both of these important events will be available here as soon as we have them!

The Alalay kids are also being kept busy: going to school, playing, doing housework and homework, and also spending more time learning lots of interesting crafts, as can be seen in the photo below (which shows some of the youngest welcome house girls hard at work). The idea is that the children will learn many skills during their time living at Alalay, and then when they are old enough, alongside finishing their schooling, they will begin to either work in the bakery or make jewellery for sale, giving themselves a small income. As well as learning about the importance of work and gaining useful practical experience, they will be encouraged to save some of this money, ready for when they become independent. Find out much more about the stages of Alalay’s work with children here.

Helen Jeffrey, Linda Cooper and I

On Monday evening I was delighted to be invited to join the Rotary Club of Bristol for dinner and to be presented with a cheque by Linda Hooper, Club President. The fantastic amount of money was raised at the “A Night at the Opera” event that the Club organised earlier in the year, starring singers from the Welsh National Opera. After the presentation of the cheque we listened to a fascinating talk by Helen Jeffrey on Celebrating 150 years of the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Accepting the cheque

My many thanks to all the group members for their hard work organising the wonderful concert and for inviting me to the dinner.

Yesterday (the 24th September) the department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (the city in which Friends of Alalay works) celebrated its 204th anniversary with a variety of celebrations. These included a huge parade around the streets which lasted four hours and was attended by many local authority and government officials, alongside thousands of “Cruceños” (people from the city). This was followed by many parties through the night. The photo on the left shows the city’s grand Cathedral.

In such a time of celebration, it is worth remembering the many hundreds of forgotten people also living in Santa Cruz: those who live in its drainage canals, beg on its streets, scavenge scraps from bins and sniff glue to try to forget the daily hurt, cold and pain they feel. The photo on the right was taken by a street child who was fortunately brought in by Alalay – he wanted to show where he used to live: on a filthy street surrounded by urine and rubbish. He slept on cardboard to try to keep warm at night.

This is their Santa Cruz too.

Last week I attended a fascinating panel discussion at which I was able to speak with a number of people interested in Friends of Alalay and our work in Bolivia. Justine Greening MP (Secretary of State for International Development), Tony German (Executive Director of Development Initiatives) and others spoke about the importance of continued international development, with a focus on the sharing of ideas and knowledge and providing practical training to allow people to develop in a sustainable way.

This has always been Friends of Alalay’s approach. We are very proud to have been able to support 18 Alalay adolescents through their vocational training courses over the last 4 years – teaching them tangible skills as nurses, car mechanics and chefs and enabling them to leave poverty behind. We are just about to launch a new campaign to offer training courses to a further 8 boys – please do contact us if you would like to personally support a child.

We are thrilled to announce that early next month (October) a brand new project will be inaugurated in Santa Cruz. Alalay is partnering with the Real Madrid Foundation and others to offer a Socio-sporting School. Children from Alalay and other identified high-risk youngsters from the local community will be brought together to play football whilst also learning many other vital skills. As quoted by the Real Madrid Foundation website:

These schools promote activities that teach values, human rights, the culture of peace, the positive use of free time, fair play, companionship and the fight against discrimination.

A similar project has already been run very successfully by Alalay in La Paz and El Alto and we are very excited to see it coming to Santa Cruz! Involved Alalay staff have just returned from La Paz where they participated in project training sessions and press meetings in advance of this project beginning in Santa Cruz. More news and photos coming soon!

The ice bucket challenge seems all set to be the charity craze of the Summer. In my opinion, any activity which raises awareness of a charity and encourages people to investigate and donate to their own selected worthy cause must be valid.

I have chosen to give my donation to Friends of Alalay. Many thousands of children in Bolivia live on the streets in drainage canals filled with dirty water, unable to access any clean water for washing or drinking. Alalay works with these same children and young people, getting them off the streets, into safe housing and offering them education, food, clothing, and love, something for which they all yearn.

If you would like to donate to the work of Friends of Alalay at any point during the year, it is easy to do so —- just send a text saying ALAL01 £ followed by the amount you wish to donate to 70070 (e.g. ALAL01 £5).

P.S. The name ALALAY (chosen by the street children themselves) means “I am cold” in the local indigenous Aymaran language… and throwing a bucket of icy water over you is pretty cold.. I can testify to that (see photo above – I’m being soaked on the right)!

Work has begun on a new building at the Alalay boys’ welcome house: creating a street adolescents’ drop-in centre and accommodation for older ex-street children.

Over the last 25 years, Alalay has built up a wealth of experience of how to deal with street children, much of which would be highly applicable to adolescents still living on the streets. There is virtually no help given to this group in Santa Cruz as they are expected to sort themselves out and “get a job”, however many are drug addicts, alcoholics, illiterate or with hugely low self-esteem. This building will provide a safe space in which to offer drop-in sessions offering help and specialised support to this age group, through both individual and small group workshops, amongst many other activities (including health and employment support). 

The building will also incorporate a separate working space for all the ex-street children already living at the welcome centre, and greatly improved accommodation for ex-street older boys in the final stage of Alalay . This group are preparing to become independent: finishing schooling, doing vocational training courses, finding jobs/flats and beginning to save money. They are fantastic role models and helpers to the children just coming in off the streets, yet currently live in cramped conditions in two small bedrooms within the existing dilapidated welcome house building.

If you would like to support this exciting project, please just click here and follow the on-screen instructions (write “welcome house” in the message section so that we can guarantee that this is where your money will go).

The 6th August is a very important day in the Bolivian calendar – the 189th Independence Day. After centuries of Spanish rule, the Republic of Bolivia was formed by Simon Bolivar on August 6th, 1825, and this day continues to be an important celebration. It is a national holiday in Bolivia and marches, military parades, street dances and carnivals happen across every city. Santa Cruz is no exception – schools and places of work have been preparing for this day for a long time.

The Alalay children are also very involved in the celebrations, and many have been chosen to represent their classes at school. They will dress up in traditional costumes from each region and parade or dance to parents, friends and classmates. This photo shows one of our oldest girls (she was previously supported by Alalay and now lives with her family after successful reintegration) and her classmates, dressed in a variety of traditional regional costumes, ready for the Independence Day celebrations.

Find out more about the day here.

As promised, here are some photos from our recent very successful tea party. The event, kindly organised by the Jones and Robinson families, encompassed a short walk in the sunshine, a “teapot treasure hunt/quiz” and a lot of tea, scones and delicious homemade cakes!

We are also thrilled to announce that the nationally acclaimed Musical and Amicable Society have kindly agreed to play for us again after their wonderful concert last year. The fundraising concert will be held at Cotham Parish Church, Bristol on Wednesday the 10th December 2014. The group will be captivating us on a selection of old English instruments. More details coming soon!