Friends of Alalay (Santa Cruz)

Recently the Alalay kids attended training regarding the proposed new Municipal Law for Child Protection. The workshops encouraged all participants to share and discuss their opinions regarding the rights of infants, children and young people, with the underlying emphasis that all of their rights are inalienable and undeniable. The training was interactive and during the day the kids learnt the fundamental point that no-one has the right to hurt them under any circumstance.

Clearly it is vitally important that all children, regardless of where they grow up, are educated about their rights, but here at Friends of Alalay we are really pleased that our children were invited to this training. For our kids, who have often suffered from horrific abuses before coming to Alalay (and are still within a very vulnerable sector of society) it is paramount that they know and understand their rights and in-keeping with Friends of Alalay’s philosophy, are empowered to help themselves.

People are the lifeblood of any organisation, and this is definitely the case at Alalay. We are very proud of our caring and dedicated staff team, who will do everything within their power to improve the lives of our children – offering them a better future and opportunities about which the kids could never have dreamed.

Our current fantastic volunteer Sasha, making a very large batch of chocolate brownies for the kids!

I first went to Bolivia as a volunteer for six months in 2006, and obviously decided to further help in any way that I could. And there are many many other volunteers from all different countries who do the same every single day. People who give up their time for no pay, sharing their skills, expertise and passion with the kids to enrich both theirs and the childrens’ lives. Over the last nine years we have sent out countless volunteers from the UK to Santa Cruz. They have painted murals and played football, checked the kids’ teeth and eyes, made rockets from Coca Cola bottles and had their hair braided many times over, run sexual health awareness workshops and taken the kids camping, taught the children dance and art, photography and cookery, rugby and English, cricket and music. And I like to think that they have received a whole lot more from the children in return.

Thank you so much to all of them.

It’s been a busy fortnight. Last week we gave a presentation to the very supportive ladies at the Keynsham Methodist Ladies’ Guild. This is the third visit that we have made to the ladies, who have always been very sympathetic to the needs of the street children and my work. We also spoke to a large number of students at Howells School, Llandaf and collected an amazing stationery donation from them – more about that next week!

Here are a couple of photos of recent events – showing some members of the Ladies Guild and also the Latin American Charities Forum 2015 (read more about that event HERE).

Last week we attended the Latin America Charities Forum 2015 in London.  This initiative is jointly sponsored by the LATA Foundation and La Vida – the latter being a UK registered charity which raises funds to support small projects across Latin America.

The Forum brings together representatives from a number of charities which work in South and Central America.  The meeting was attended by representatives from seventeen different charities, with interests ranging through education, street children, water supply, capital intensive medical facilities, and everything in between!  It proved a very useful event for Friends of Alalay – providing us with a number of helpful contacts and several good ideas that we can use, based on other charities’ experiences.

Our thanks go to LATA and La Vida for organising such a useful event! Photos of the event to follow soon!

We are very pleased to say that work continues to progress on the boys’ welcome house. The top of these two photos gives just a small insight into how bad the house had become – with crumbling paint, leaking roofs, horrific unsanitary bathrooms and mould spreading up the walls…

And the lower photo shows a section of our new shiny, leak-free roof!

This house is such a vital resource for Alalay. It provides a clean, safe and loving home both for new boys when they first choose to come in off the streets, and also for our oldest adolescent boys who are studying hard in their vocational training courses, finishing school and getting their first jobs. We are so grateful to the very many generous donors who have made this work possible, and look forward to its completion!

I am very pleased to share our latest newsletter with supporters – with updates on current projects, the adolescents we’re supporting through vocational training courses, and what the Alalay kids are up to during their Winter (!) holidays.

Please just click on the newsletter below to access a .pdf version of the full-size document to download, save and read. You can always find both this and previous editions to download HERE. And once you’ve read it, click HERE to watch the kids in Joss Stone’s music video!

The Alalay Foundation (which Friends of Alalay supports!) recently celebrated 25 years of working with street children in Bolivia.

Since it was started by 19-year old Bolivian student Claudia Gonzales, Alalay has helped well over 10,000 kids and adolescents and works with more than 1,000 children annually. The Foundation provides food, health care, clothing, education, social work, spiritual, psychological and legal help, and technical training for these children. Most importantly, it provides something they’ve often never had – a home and a family.

Read more about Alalay’s story HERE or watch our latest 5-minute video (click on the video link above), where the Alalay family tell us what it is that they love about their home.

All of our children get involved in baking their own bread – they learn a useful skill, it increases their self-esteem and more importantly, they get to eat tasty homecooked treats as a reward for their hard work! This fresh bread is a far cry from when I first got involved with Alalay and we had to bang our bread on the table until all of the ants fell out!

This photo is one of a series of beautiful images taken by Ben Ashmole Photography – to see more of their photos and find out about their visit earlier this year, please click HERE.

The last few weeks have been busy in both Bristol and Bolivia.

Here in Bristol we’ve held various events, such as the Cotham School Fiesta where we had a stall – telling people about Alalay and its work with street children, selling small Bolivian items, running “guess the name of the (Bolivian!) monkey” and premiering our new “catch the mouse” game, which was a great success!

And in Santa Cruz, Bolivia the Alalay kids have been hard at work too! Firstly, they were invited to participate in a day organised by the local Government, working on an initial draft of new government statutes with other young people. Then they appeared on TV as part of the fundraising “Centamaraton” (see my previous post HERE to find out more about this initiative). And finally, they joined in with Alalay’s first “family day” where parents and children involved in Alalay’s prevention programme came together to play games and join in activities centred around the importance of family and how to improve family relationships.

[Please click on any photo to see a bigger version, or hover your mouse over a photo to find out more].

We are thrilled that we can finally share Joss Stone’s latest music video with you – “The Answer”, especially because some of our kids have a starring role!

In Team Joss’ own words:

“The Answer” is about letting go of your worries… be free, have a dance, don’t waste your days worrying about what might be. Life is what you make it.

A very appropriate sentiment for all of us, but especially for these kids who have been through so many hard times on the streets, and now have the opportunity to be themselves, smile, have fun, play like normal children and look forward to a much brighter future.

If you don’t have enough time to watch the whole video now then just skip through to about 00:34 when you can see the Alalay kids two seconds of fame! Our kids are dressed in typical bright orange Bolivian costumes, so are fairly recognisable!