Situation

The project is based in Benavidez, a suburb of Buenos Aires. Some years ago “an island of help” for children was established by an engaged teacher from Buenos Aires.
A lady named Maria Marta bought real estate in a workers quarter and provided the premises to the children of the Barrios. They can go there in the afternoon to get help with their homework. It has to be mentioned that at these Barrios, people are living very close together (about 8 to 10 people on 20 sq meters). The children don’t have the room to do their homework there. The only way to get out of this situation is a reasonable education. From this starting point some good progress has been made over the past years. At Maria Marta’s the children do not only get help with their homework; they also get food and a warm meal on Saturdays when there is no meal served at the schools. In addition, courses like handcrafting, sewing, manufacturing shoes, gardening projects and more are offered.
We considered that kind of help for self help as really positive and fruitful, so that we decided to support the project. So far, everything was privately financed by Maria Marta. But she is not able to do so in the long run. We decided to help out to ensure the continuation of this project.
We have received local support by Gudrun and Josef Weiser who went to Argentina in October 2005 in order to provide their help on-site. Both are specialized nurses for handicapped care and are supporting us in finding other projects, monitoring the allocation of resources, organizing help and writing project reports etc. In addition, due to their professional background, they are directly and actively engaged in these projects. Because of our financial commitment for Maria Marta’s project in Benavidez and due to the incoming donations they are able to continue with the courses until the end of this year and perhaps even longer than that.
We also intend to support the project in the mid-term as it stands for direct, pragmatic help; our impressions were really positive.
How things are developing can be read in the project reports of Gudrun and Josef who are doing a great job over there in Benavidez. Please have a look at the project diary.