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Hello everyone,
Here is our second newsletter to bring you up to date with what has been happening at Colonia Ecologica. If you know anyone else who would like to receive this, for example friends or colleagues who sponsored us, please could you forward it to them, and/or let us know their email address if they wish to receive future newsletters.
First we want to let you know that we are no longer living in Cochabamba, Bolivia. We are returning to the UK, from where we will be able to do more fundraising for Colonia Ecologica. It was very hard for us to leave as they are like a family to us now, but we will keep in close contact with them and our plans are to visit Colonia Ecologica again in the summer of 2007.
Charity Bolivia wants to welcome two new trustees who are taking over our activities in Cochabamba - Carlye and Wendell Krohn. They were colleagues and friends while working in Colegio Calvert in Cochabamba. Carlye is an English teacher at the school and Wendell will be a full-time volunteer at Colonia this year. Carlye will be taking the students from Colegio Calvert to Colonia every other week for an afternoon. The students will be continuing to help the children with homework, reading and games, as they started to do last year. Welcome both of you!
The climb of Cerro Tunari was a big success. All the children made it to the top except for 3 who stayed to guard our campsite. You can read all about it on our website blog: www.charity-bolivia.org/blog/. The total amount raised by the climb so far is: US$ 3400 (GBP 1900 / Euro 2750). As a reward for making it to the top, Charity Bolivia bought 5 tents for the children. These will sleep 25 children in total and will be used for various camping trips including a week-long bicycle trip in December. We would like to thank everybody who collected the sponsorship money for us in various countries.
One of the volunteers, Jacob, who climbed Cerro Tunari with us, has been doing a photography workshop with the children, sponsored by his university in the US. This has been a huge success, the children were very enthusiastic about taking photos and there is currently an exhibit of their work in Cochabamba. It is wonderful for them to have had this opportunity - thank you Jacob.
Charity Bolivia is now giving US$50 every month to Colonia for monthly expenses. This money will be coming from those of you who are already making monthly donations to the charity - thank you for your commitment. Colonia already receives some money every month from SKID in the Netherlands, a charity which supports different projects all over Bolivia, but this is not enough to cover all their costs. The Cochabamba Women's Club are also donating a regular amount each quarter which is used for food staples such as rice, pasta, etc - we would like to thank them for this, it is very much appreciated by Kiko, Carmen and the children.
The building of the house is making excellent progress, the bedrooms are almost finished, walls are varnished, cupboards have been fitted in the bedrooms, tiles are on all the floors and it really feels like a home now. The two bathrooms have been tiled and some of the plumbing is done. The money we raised from the climb of Cerro Tunari will be used to pay for this work.
The next stage of the building will be to install a septic tank and shower/wash block. This is a longer term project, and it will be built behind the orphanage, so that the children who live there currently don't have to queue up for a long time in the morning before school starts. We would like to thank Danilo Peñaloza and the Cochabamba Rotary club for starting to raise money for this.
There are so many people we need to thank over the last few months that there is no space for them all, so we have instead listed our specific thanks on the website blog - go to www.charity-bolivia.org/blog/ for details.
Thank you again for your continued interest and support,
Claire Hamnett and Gertjan Janszen
Charity Bolivia
(Newsletter No.2 - Aug 2005)
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