In early 2021, we were fortunate to partner with the Jeunesse Foundation to support children in our projects around the world. A year later, we look back at what we have been able to accomplish thanks to their support.
Our Director of International Programs, Luis Bourdet, writes about the projects we have supported abroad:
It has been a great success to have tablets for the children, and a blessing to be able to access virtual education in a better and more suitable way.
“Tablets were distributed to children at affiliated programs in Colombia, Brazil, and Peru over the past year, thanks to the Jeunesse Fund. Due to COIVD-19, most children in Latin America were forced to receive virtual education with no digital platform and no personal computers. The idea to provide tablets came through a conversation about the difficulties children were having accessing education with little to no resources. Children were using their parents’ smart phones, when available, to complete their lessons using radio, television, and digital apps that required costly internet access. With tablets, the children would have the tools to access these apps through public internet channels, without having to share their parents’ phones. It has been a great success to have tablets for the children, and a blessing to be able to access virtual education in a better and more suitable way.
A new school in Bolivia
A child in Peru poses with a tablet that was given to him thanks to our partnership with the Jeunesse Foundation.
Jeunesse has also agreed to contribute to the building of an agricultural technical training center in Bolivia. It was built in a a rural area, about a two-hour car drive away from the city of Santa Cruz, and provides agricultural training to local children and adults so that they will not have to leave the town and go to the big city, which is just too far from their home. The center sits on enough land for agricultural training, and has a school building, a barn, mostly for bovine production, a chicken house, a pig pen, a fishery, a bee farm, and a duck farm, so that the training program will be inclusive and comprehensive.
In this area of Bolivia, families are totally dependent on agricultural production, so the center provides training in the areas that will generate the most business for the locals. The funds from Jeunesse were directed for the construction of two of the school’s classrooms, along with a set of toilets.
The Montero School also submitted a proposal to expand their educational facility to implement an agricultural training program. The proposal included a request for funds to purchase land to use for practical training, since the current facility only had a building for theoretical and academic education. The construction of classrooms for practical training was the priority, followed by the construction of a barn for bovine training, a pig pen for porcine training, a chicken coop for training in poultry production, and the reconditioning of existing fishponds for fish production.
We are incredibly grateful for the support of the Jeunesse Kids Foundation. They have helped make big changes for so many children and families in our program during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Children Incorporated has allocated funding from other sources to purchase land and facilities for the other areas of production, such as the barn, the pig pen etc., as well as finding a source of water and electricity for the program’s use. It has also allocated funding to purchase animals and basic equipment and tools for educational purposes. The construction has been completed, and the Montero School is now in the subsequent phase of reconditioning the land and planting vegetables, fruit trees, and permanent forestry, while awaiting some additional funding support for administration and maintenance costs, food for the animals, and fencing the facility.”
We are incredibly grateful for the support of the Jeunesse Kids Foundation. They have helped make big changes for so many children and families in our program during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you again for all you have done!
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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD WITH CHILDREN INCORPORATED?
You can sponsor a child in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our sponsorship portal, create an account, and search for a child that is available for sponsorship.