Educating the slums

Now is a crucial time for our project as students start a new school year. Even seemingly small things can have a huge setback, for example its surprising how many cases we find where parents are sending their kids to school after having no breakfast and taking no lunch, it’s just not something they naturally think of preparing, because having such choices is a luxury for them. No food means no energy, which generally means no learning.

So, a new school year is an extremely important time for us, we have a lot to take of; school registrations and fees, uniforms, transport, books and of course making sure that the families have sufficient food and make it a priority to prepare it for their children before school.

So naturally, at such a time, your support is very important to us, we have a lot of bills and a lot of families in need. Wits not possible for us to help everybody in the world, but I’m sure you can imagine, we really hate to have to say no, to a child or a family.

Although a stressful, whirlwind time of year, we do look forward to it, to seeing kids come home from school smiling at how fantastic it was. This year we are trying to make sure that all curriculums include some teaching of AI, so they are really looking forward to that. We also have a couple of students starting University, including Chadni who is heading to the UK to study biomedical science, a huge thanks to her sponsor for making that possible.

We are really noticing some amazing developments in the student’s lately, as they grow up, full of confidence, good English, positive energy and more, so much that people struggle to believe they had such a difficult start in life – to us this is the true mark of success and it is your success as much as it is ours, so thank you once again for your incredible support.

This first quarter of 2025 we have been doing everything better. Better social media, better marketing, a better website ( www.mariacristinafoundation.org ). We must keep moving forward and taking positive steps. We have to stay present, stay in the people’s minds and stay on track to transform the lives of the families we help.

This year is an important one, several of our students will be graduating universities in Europe. Others will be starting their university courses in Europe and beyond. Girls on part scholarships in the UAE will be hoping for good grades to continue into the next grade. There are studying to improve their English to find good jobs, and they are doing great. It’s an important year and we need all the support we can get.

There is no doubt that our projects will get bigger and better because we are determined to make it happen. So, we are making sure that we are ready, with the right structure and policies in place to make every step a success.

We are so thankful for the support that has got us this far, your help has been essential. Every month, every little bit helps and keeps us going. We are sincerely looking forward to some great success stories this year and those are your successes too, so thank you, we are creating these paths to better futures, together!

Links:

• New web site, still under progress