Friends of Alalay (Santa Cruz)

The piano, flute and song concert held last Saturday in Bristol was a great success and raised nearly £1,000, of which around £500 will go the directly help the street children.

Many thanks to all those wonderful people who came to support, and an extra special thank you to the very talented musicians for so kindly offering us their time and talent.

Alalay supporters, you are warmly invited to a concert of “song, flute and piano” at St Matthew’s Church, Clare Road, Cotham, Bristol, BS6 5TB on Saturday 18 February at 7.30 pm.

Performances include work by Robert Schumann, JS Bach and Benjamin Britten- just click on the flyer on the left to see the full programme.

There is no charge for the concert – just a retiring collection – half of everything raised will go towards Friends of Alalay’s work with Bolivian street kids and the remainder to St Matthew’s Church.

Please do come along to what promises to be a fantastic event… and spread the word!

We wanted to take this opportunity to wish all of our fantastic friends and supporters a very Happy New Year!

2016 has been another busy year for Alalay and its children in Bolivia. It has also been the year we celebrated ten years of Friends of Alalay. Read more about our many achievements in the last three quarterly newsletters available HERE. To quote from our most recent Christmas edition:

I’m now thrilled to report that the total money that we’ve raised exceeds £200,000, all of which has been used to help the children to help themselves.

None of this would have been possible without the practical support of so many individuals, groups and organizations – for which my heartfelt gratitude.

In 2017, we and the children wish you health, happiness, love and a safe home.

[Photo: Alalay kids in the bakery. Photo credit: Ben Ashmole Photography]

We were absolutely thrilled to hear that Alalay has received the highest recognition possible from the Bolivian Parliament!

Claudia Gonzales (the inspirational woman who founded Alalay aged just 19 years of age, and continues to run the Foundation to this day, visible in the photos above) wrote to tell us the following:

We share with you this recognition presented to ALALAY by the House of  Deputies on November 9. The “Illimani de Oro” is the highest recognition of the Bolivian Parliament and was given to the ALALAY Foundation to honour it as a “meritorious institution of  the plurinational state of Bolivia”.

Thanks for the support and contribution that Friends of Alalay has made together with ALALAY during all these years. We want to share this  recognition with all of you who have been, and are part, of this beautiful  work. This recognition fills us with joy as an institution, but above all renews our commitment to work on behalf of the children, girls and families who either live or work on the streets, or at a high risk in Bolivia”.

My thanks to every single one of you who have supported Friends of Alalay at any point over the last ten years.. This recognition is for all of us!

Many thanks to the congregation of St. Matthew’s Church, Bristol for their kind support to Alalay in purchasing our beautiful handmade Alalay Christmas cards after last Sunday’s service.

We still have a few cards left – each one individually designed and hand-painted by a street child currently living at Alalay. Find out more and contact us to purchase some HERE.

It’s that time of the year again… and we have a very small selection of beautiful Christmas cards for sale, each individually painted by our children. Make sure to order yours quickly – they are guaranteed to sell out fast!

As always, they cost just £1.50 each, or 4 cards for £5. Please just contact us for more information about purchase or delivery.

We have recently agreed to support a number of new children through their vocational training courses. This year, we will be supporting our oldest children through training in secretarial work and catering and, for the first time, a boy who is training to become a dance instructor!

In other good news, thanks in part to new equipment purchased a year ago we have now doubled the value of the output this year from the carpentry workshop.

The photo above shows a group of our children when I was first in Bolivia in 2006… The smallest boy (front right) is about to finish his vocational training course, as well as already working and starting to save money!

A huge well done to awesome Friends of Alalay supporter Zach, who recently completed Bristol Half Marathon to raise money for the street children of Bolivia… Here he is post-marathon:  still looking remarkably fresh! 🙂

If anyone has any great ways to raise money to give the Alalay children a better chance in life, through supporting educational and self-sustainable projects, then please do always get in touch with us.

This year we are proudly celebrating ten years of Friends of Alalay, and during that time, we have helped Alalay and the street children they support to help themselves in many, many ways.

We are very pleased to share our latest newsletter with all of our supporters, detailing some of the amazing achievements that we have made in Bolivia, with the support of every single one of you! Playgrounds, vegetables, medical equipment, chickens.. and that’s just the start of the journey. Please just click on the newsletter to open it, read and/or download it.

¡Muchas gracias! / Thank you!

Many thanks to all at the wonderfully talented Harlequin Singers choir for so generously giving up their time and talents for our fundraising concert in Bristol last week. It was a fantastic success, with many in attendance and a great amount of money raised – which will go straight to the street kids supported by Alalay – to offer them a chance of a safe home, an education, skills, friendship, love and a much brighter future…

Thanks to all who attended, supported, sent well wishes or helped on the evening (or before).. We couldn’t do it without you!