Newsletter: January - February - March 2007

January:

In January - as usual in Brazil - there is no activity in schools as well as in GAC. It is the time of the summer school holidays. The GAC employees could start their well deserved vacation.

February:

1.   Arrival of our second trainee at GAC

At February 2nd our second trainee arrived in Belo Horizonte. Her name is Simone. She is 31 years old and will share teaching with Tim the lessons for English and IT.

She will also lead the anti drugs project and support Matthias in communication between godchildren and godparents.

About optimizing the information for the godparents you can read further on.

Simone during preparing carnival in the day-care center of the older kids

2.    Optimization of the communication godchild/godparent

Matthias is spending most of his free time for supporting the GAC project and the information of godparents. This is also the - positive - result of increasing godparents within the last year.

To reduce the load of Matthias and also his wife - who is very involved as well - and to optimize the information floating we will set up the following points:

Every week we will pick 10 godchildren from our list.

Tim/Simone will consult them in single talks to hear about news from school and home. The kids are free to talk about anything they would like, concerns as well as problems. The trainees will take notices and an actual photo and ask the kid to write a small letter for their godparents.

On Fridays the results will be transferred via internet to the godparents

Following this defined path we are hoping to better satisfy the wishes of our godparents to receive more information about the kids and their families.

3.   Calls for donation with top results

In January several different groups called for donations to support the GAC project.

One call published in the German internet forum www.sportforen.de contacted by more then 5.000 members returned the money for the new workshop "Bakery".

The company Outokumpu Technology do Brasil residing in Belo Horizonte donated beside a cash sum, toys, food and electronic equipment for GAC.

Members of the Rotary Clubs Frankenberg donated a cash sum which will be used as well for setting up a new workshop.

All over we received donations in sum of 1.800 Euros and 580 R$. All initiators received a letter of thanks from the president of Kinderhorizonte e. V.

4.   New Workshops starting in 2007

The project planning for 2007 was done during a kick of meeting with GAC.

As mentioned before we will set up a small bakery to teach the kids producing rolls, cakes, pizza, etc. The classes should qualify the kids for a better chance to find a job after finishing school and be able to support their families at home.

Next we can start in February a computer lab with 6 PCs. We will teach kids first steps to handle a computer. This will be done by our German trainees.

One wish of the girls was to create a workshop for manicure and pedicure .... Why not? A good chance to learn the basics of hygiene as well as the basics for a future profession.

Our trainee Tim raised the idea to implement sport lessons to better organize the enormous energy of the kids. Of course we will choose the popular Brazilian sports for these classes. Also a good chance to learn working in a team and to become disciplined  

Also starting this year every kid will receive a schedule to help organizing the group of the older kids. A very needed point as everybody knows concerned with.

5. Anti-Drug Campaign

The family of one of our godparents collected money to initiate a competition for the kids and spend rewards for the results.

The group of the older kids will be asked to develop own ideas for an anti-drug-campaign, prepare material and publish the results. We will built groups of kids. The groups will be supported by our trainees. Before starting the project the kids will be informed by technical literature and speeches of doctors and psychologists about the influence of drugs.

The project will take some necessary time to cover most of the aspects and also to produce productive results.

The donated money will be used for the necessary material and at least to award the best project group with:

March:

The 3rd Trainee

The number of needed workers increased because of starting new workshops. Because GAC has no additional money for new employees Kinderhorizonte e.V. is trying to increase arrangements with trainees.

The newest recruitment is 28 year old Juliane Noack, she is already living in Belo Horizonte studying social education and writing her dissertation at PUC university. She is volunteering 3 times a week at GAC and at the moment she is organizing the anti drug campaign and teaching English lessons.

The GAC management is very happy with Julianes help because she is not only bringing in new ideas into the workshop but also has a very good knowledge in social education. Who ever has knowledge about the Brazilian educational policy can imagine what it means to have help of qualified workers. And of course GAC is appreciating this as well.

Bakery is on it's way …

It's here ... the bakery for kids! At end of march arrived the oven, the masticator and the high precision scale at GAC (see picture).

The oven and the masticator shortly after unwrapping

Now it's about time to organize the workshop, to read the manual of the new machines and to collect a small book of recipes. All these tasks will start within the next days. Everybody is very suspicious when the first GAC stamped rolls will be ready for the kid's breakfast table.

Carnival Retrospect

This year was the first time for Carnafavela officially taking place in Belo Horizonte. Ongoing for several days in and around "our" Favela Morro do Papagaio. Many GAC kids and parents took the opportunity to join the parades and shows. As well as our trainee Simone who made many pictures - at least during daytime.

Carnival parade at Moro do Papagaio