How sponsors have helped the projects

The following document was written by the Social Worker at Mama Cocha in June 2006. She wanted to express her thanks to the sponsors of Mama Cocha and Runa Wasi and explain how they have helped the project progress.

 

DEAR GODFATHER

I want to begin by saying hello and thank you for your great support and interest towards children. I want to let you know that we have been making some changes, as well as restructuring and increasing our annual program for Mama Cocha and Runa Wasi.
As you know, we have two projects in one: Mama Cocha, which is the home of children who stay there because they are at risk, and Runa Wasi, the School were they receive their education.

The changes we have implemented have been necessary because we want to raise he level of our therapy services and education so our children can have access to greater progress.

Today we count with two new school teachers, specialists in education. We have one for elementary school and another for workshops. We also count with a physical and language therapist that work full-time. This will be very helpful to optimize this area. Also, we have incorporated a specialist in psychology who works full-time in our team, and who works everyday with each child and their parents. This person will support all our community outreach initiatives, as well as finding and welcoming more patients. These two specialists not only provide their service to our children, but also to other people, children as well as adults.

Today I would like to share with you the programs that we have started to work on, some have changed and other ones are new, as you may notice.

Family School Program
We meet every 15 days, and we count with socio-educational lectures and work-oriented workshops. We cover health, education, awareness, psychosocial themes, etc. We also receive arts and crafts classes, baking, and cloth manufacturing classes, among others.
This program aims to promote parent’s awareness on the importance of their role as primary educators. We provide necessary information for psychobiological development and child raising. The idea is for them to identify common problems and search for solutions, as well as strengthen family ties.

Program “One day in Classes”:
In this program we invite the parents to be present in their children’s classes. We want to educate parents to be their children’s best teachers, to know how the professor conducts a lesson with students every day and how they work on strengthening abilities and capacities to develop and be integrated in all aspects of life.

Radio Program: Stand in my shoes (ponte en mis zapatos)
Every Friday afternoon we have a radio program. This allows us to reach the community with very important themes like: community awareness, making the population understand that our children are like any other person, that hey just need an opportunity to show what they can do. The radio show also deals with diverse social issues, like children’s rights for example. These themes are presented by professionals from Mama Cocha and Runa Wasi, as well as other guests.

Social Work Program
This program started this month. We began by selecting a group of our youths who could clean, organize, sweep, wash and help keeping in order our centers. These activities would be paid for. This is something we do in an attempt to train youth so that then they can work in different jobs in the community, under adult supervision. In this way, youths can feel useful, independent and, of course, happy.

We would like to tell you that we have intensified the Makaton program: Sign language, and the PECS communication through shapes and figures. Every day, teachers in each classroom work on these themes. Physical and language therapy is provided from Monday to Friday, with a system that provides follow-up on each child and that recently showed that there has been many positive changes among the children.

Now that we have the psychologists permanently, we are very happy because this will help us a lot dealing with aggression and sexuality problems that the kids may present. Also, this type of work provides us with guidelines to work in a better way towards the personal development of the children, as well as with the parents, since they are the ones that have to provide support for 70% of their children’s education.

Every Friday we meet as a team to share what has taken place in the week, doubts, solutions and programming for the coming week.

Every Tuesday we have psychomotricity activies . The entire team and children go to a Coliseum where there is a large platform and spaces to do some exercises and movements with the help of the therapist, who encourages their reaction to different stimuli.

Every other day, the children receive music therapy classes because thanks to contact with music they have been growing in their personal identity and autonomy, learning to move in their physical environment and stimulating their creative capacities, intellectual and emotional intelligence.

Every month we have been setting goals for ourselves and when we finish each month we assess if we have accomplished them or not, so as to better our work towards them.

Every three months, each one of our children and staff receive a health analysis covering check-ups for parasites, HIV, hepatitis, typhoid fever, hemoglobin, etc.

For these following months, I am glad to tell you that for the end of July we will have the visit of two friends:

Miranda Gavin, who comes from Cusco to share with us anecdotes and meet our children, as well as producing a video. At the end of August we will count with our dear Celeste Marion who also comes from Cusco for the second time to Mama Cocha. She will be working with the children and Staff for one week, and will share the knowledge she has, as a specialist in autism, toquens pecs and Makaton.

Finally, I don’t want to forget to mention something very beautiful for us. Today, we have our friend Raquel back in Mama Cocha and Runa Wasi in a full-time basis. She is now head of projects and also provides musical therapy. She overcame her illness in a 90%, and we are very happy to have her with us again. She provides a lot of support in favor of children with different abilities.

This is what I wanted to share with you, the changes made, and as you will notice there is a lot of things that are better in our centers.

Thank you again for everything. If you would like more information, please get in touch with us at: info@kiyasurvivors.org

Patty Alvarado M.
Asistente social

LOS ORGANOS 2006