London

Pereira

• Organising events to help us raise funds. These have included all kinds of events and activities ranging from holding cake sales, selling raffle tickets and hand painted t-shirts to organising car boot sales, hosting children's christmas parties, community parties and picnics and coordinating sponsored skydiving.
• Raising awareness in the UK of the challenges faced by the children and young people living in the Centre and how our work and commitment can help.
• Attending charity related seminars or talks relating to how to improve our skills and efficiency in making our charity work. ​​
• Acting as a intermediate between the centre and those who want to know more about the centre, want to send clothes or want to go and volunteer at the centre

We are constantly speaking with Rubiela Isaza, the manager of the centre in Pereira and we are kept informed of how the centre develops, as well as being notified of any emergencies or accidents that might occurred.

​CAG’s priority is to ensure that the basic needs, health, education,  and  of those living at the centre are met. 

• Education: because of the difficult backgrounds experienced by the children before they come to the foundation, many have an educational level below that expected from children of similar age groups. In some cases, this is heightened by learning difficulties such as lack of concentration or poor language skills. Therefore, one of our top priorities is to resolve these problems by improving educational resources and support. By working with professionals willing to volunteer their services and time to the foundation, we aim to help the children overcome learning obstacles and achieve a basic level of education.  Some of the early children are now at University and are successful students.

• Health: not having basic essential healthcare resources makes the health of the children and those living within the centre very precarious. Until we have sufficient funds to build a healthcare centre within the foundation, CAG provides funds to purchase medicines and regular health checks from external organisations. Before CAG, many of these children were suffering from the effects of neglect: abuse, violence, drugs, unstable environments, etc. And so it is crucial that we provide the children with the psychological guidance needed to help them develop their emotional well-being too.

• Basic needs:  from everyday essential expenses for food, electricity, water and gas, sometimes other unexpected expenses can arise. CAG often contributes financially to help cover for those expenses such us overdue bills
  

• Leisure and social needs: having leisure and social events to communicate with the outside world is very important for the children and hence it’s also important for us. On special dates, CAG helps to co-ordinate recreational days for the children to have fun, play and forget for a couple of hours about the difficult circumstances that they live in. In short, so that the children can act as children again.