In Latin America, for the many school
age children not attending, we have developed a very successful means
of educating them up to the standard of children their age who are
in school. We prepare them to pass the entrance for the grades they
belong in. We help pay their registration fees, uniforms, class materials.
Then we support them
in school for two years: until they are well launched on their way education.
[The
challenge: 26% of all Children, the poorest, remain uneducated]
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We have been getting enough
street kids into school via our carefully worked out method
that by early 2006 we started petitioning the Govt. to incorporate
this into their methodology.. |
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| The venue was the July 2008 WHO nursing conference held in Israel and attended by
health care officials from 33 countries.. Nancy and her husband, Tom
Palmer, MD, have conducted annual clinics for our children and
parents beginning in 2005. |
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Street Kids 2009 - Time to re-examine our approach to helping street children
and the families they come from.
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In April
2001 the founder of Bruce Organisation arrived to put into
practice certain theories he had been working on designed
to solve the growing problem of school age children not receiving
education. Throughout Latin America between a fifth and a
quarter of all children are not in school.- most but not all
of them are qualified Street Children.
He did not come unprepared. His first project for at risk
children was in 1960, and he started his first NGO in 1976.
In
Trujillo he went right to work proving and disproving one theorem
after another. Sponsor 15 mothers clubs if every mother agreed to
let him get their children into school. Open a chain of free soup
kitchens for children who agreed to let him put them into school.
Use theatre, music and dance to captivate street children and
register them into school. Funding came from his own means and those
of his family.
Soon he was joined by others - teachers, social
workers, psychologists, service personnel and lots of university
students; some were paid staff, most were volunteers.
For three
years he and his team struggled against ignorance, poverty,
indifference, corruption, mediocre results and what seemed to be a
conspiracy to cover up the true number of children being denied
their right to an education: (the Government said 96% of children
in Peru attend school, UNICEF quoted this figure) - but we
produced evidence showing that only 76% of the nations children were
actually in school. Since the magnitude of the problem is thus
concealed, no otherinstitution or ngo is dedicated to helping these
children..
During this period lots of extremely poor children
did get fed, clothed, medicated and educated; by us: but never
enough fast enough to be considered "The Solution" ..
Then in
early 2004 we began to implement what later developed into our
current, effective solution to locating, recruiting and educating
street children. Since then we have implemented this solution
throughout Peru, and since 2006 have been introducing it into other
Latin American countries. |
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Here are a few
of the Projects undertaken by
Bruce Volunteers
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| Dilema Faces Peru's Schools, Out-of-school kids
and challenges to any who help. |
 GARBAGE PATCH
KIDS | |
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Regional dump
- where .hundreds of children and mums live on roting
garbage, breathing toxic fumes. | | |
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Quiet Irishman sponsors and names a
school after his Alma Mater back
home.
Gavin
Molloy, with help from some generous friends has
patroned "Scoil losa"school in the barrio La
Esperansa |
So far 24 children are
attending. | | |
 Volunteer Life at Bruce - Photos of
volunteers who have served or are serving at the various
centres of Bruce. Also photos of some of our children in
class, & at play.
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It takes 2 Years !. When we find a child,
convince the mother to let us get him or her educated, take
them into our little school, give them their first lessons;
finally get them up to the level of education for their age,
and matriculate them into a state school (paying for uniforms
and all expenses): our work for that child is only just begun
(2 years)
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Above are club
meetings 7 June 2006We continue to work with each child,
and will do so for the next two years. Visiting every month
for a "Club Meeting" , at which we monitor their progress,
give prizes, work with their techers, our Social Workers see
how things are going at school, at home: and we pay for
wehatever their parents cannon or will not. We do this for two
years. |
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HIV / AIDS pandemic thrives in
Latin America |
Sherrill Musty, the
publisher of the book "WHAT'S A VIRUS ANYWAY
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The UN has
declared that the number infected with HIV/AIDS in Latin
America is greater than that of Europe and the USA
combined. If you live in one of these countries you
would not know this - it is not reported in the media,
talked about in the chambers of Government. They are in
denial. But we know it is there, children and families
in the communities we help are suffering: and there is
little help available.
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 For over three
decades Latin America has endured the unenviable distinction
of having more street children per capita than any place on
earth. What is less known is that for every child who sleeps
in the street there are 300 more in practically the same
condition who live on the street by day but at night sleep
under a plastic sheet or in a woven read or adobe hovel with
their siblings. Both are classed as "Street Children", the
distinction being 'IN' the street, as opposed to 'ON' the
street [those 'IN' are more likely to be addicted to drugs].
When we first arrived in Peru we worked with both types of
Street Children, but for the past three years we have
concentrated our efforts and resources in helping the much
larger but less known population of Street Children who live
On the street; those abandoned in their own homes. During this
time we have managed to open hub centres in 8 cities, with 24
satellite children's centres located in the poorest barrios:
where we educate, feed, medicate and care for them Won't you join
us!. |
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| Street kids,
..........They come
to us
..........as they are;
we make of
them
..........what they let us |
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