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submitted by Judith A. Peterson, President
Fundación Ayuda Niños La Paz, A.C.
Colonias Marquez de Leon, Laguna Azul, Villas de Guadalupe and Vista Hermosa are impoverished neighborhoods on the outskirts of La Paz, on the road to the local dump. Some twelve years ago some of the members of Fundacion Ayuda Niños La Paz, A.C., (FANLAP), were introduced to this area by Padre Luis, a Catholic priest who previously started a breakfast program in Colonia Marquez de Leon. Three of the current members of the board of FANLAP helped by getting donations for this program in 1996. Club Cruceros de La Paz, A.C., presently a supporter of FANLAP, also was involved at that time.
We formed Fundacion Para Los Niños de La Paz, A.C., in 2000, changed to FANLAP in 2005, in an effort to further help the children of these neighborhoods obtain proper nutrition. To that end, we built a dining room/community center in Colonia Laguna Azul where 150 children aged 8 months to 13 years of age are served a hot lunch five days a week during the school year. The preparation and serving of meals and cleanup are done by some of the mothers in the neighborhood on a voluntary basis.
Although the law requires students to complete the 9th grade, many families are not able to comply because of prohibitive costs attendant to sending their children to junior high school. In 2000 we started a program to help students of these neighborhoods further their education beyond the sixth grade. We purchase school supplies, backpacks, uniforms, gym clothes, school shoes and tennis shoes for students willing to apply themselves, keeping their grades above an 8 point minimum, so they may attend junior and senior high school. In many cases we also give money for public transportation to and from school and we usually pay tuition costs for senior high school.
We are called upon by SAMM (Prevention of Violence to Women and Children) and SEP (Secretary of Public Education) to purchase uniforms, school supplies, backpacks and school shoes for children who are abused (in the case of SAMM) and children of HIV positive parents who can no longer work; in some cases the children are HIV positive (in the case of SEP). For school year 2008 2009 we plan to help sixty of these children, in addition to over 200 applicants from the colonias in which we concentrate.
A child psychologist interacts with Universidad Mundial to provide help to children at three local grade schools. She and students of child psychology at the University also conduct a workshop for adolescents in our community center.
In many cases the families live in a one-room tar-paper shack, with no quiet area in which to concentrate; we wondered how the students were able to study and keep their grades up. We dreamed of including a study center on our property in Colonia Laguna Azul. We are very exited about our plans to build a second floor onto our existing building. In this space will be a public library complete with computers connected to the Internet. This is a joint project of FANLAP, Rotary Club La Paz Balandra, and the three levels of Government; City, State and Federal.
Our building is used by government agencies, including INEA who offers adult education so parents are able to complete high school; summer courses by the Public Libraries Association; various classes including prevention of violence, sex education, and others put on by DIF, the family development department, Initial Education, which offers classes to teach mothers how to educate pre-preschool children. We also have volunteers who teach English classes, art classes, child psychology workshops, and others. A dental surgeon from Oregon makes yearly visits, and together with a dentist from the health department has treated most of the children and adults who needed dental work.
To learn more about us and how you may volunteer to help, please visit our website at www.lapazninos.org. You may also call us at (612) 121 2166 or email us by clicking here.
Donations from people like you sustain our programs. To make an online, 501 C 3 tax deductible donation, please go to http://donate.icf-xchange.org/donate.php/losninosdelapaz.
You may write a check drawn on a Mexican bank and send it to FANLAP at Calle Santiago, #320, e La Paz y Mulege, Colonia Bella Vista, La Paz B.C.S. Or make a direct deposit at Banamex, account number 09620066750 to donate pesos or account number 09629017914 to donate dollars. If you do so and need a Mexican tax deductible receipt, please advise us.
Publisher's Note: The BajaInsider provides free publicity for charitable events which support causes to which the publishers are sympathetic. We do not investigate the validity of our contributing charities and encourage our readers to check out any institution before making significant contributions. We also wish great success to all charities with sincere motivation.