By John Padorr | Project Leader
Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for your contributions. Our foundation continues to need at least 3 to 5 metric tonnes of rice per month. Our daily needs include:
Lunch every school day for the 2,600 children attending our 23 kindergartens
Breakfast and dinner for the 180 children living in the orphanages at our Mercy Centre (they eat lunch in school)
Lunch for our staff of 200, mostly Kindergarten teachers who were raised and educated in the slums where they teach
Distribution to over 300 families we look after through our AIDS home-based care program
Emergency distribution: One example is our recent work with the community living beside a garbage dump: Most poor families would never consider setting up their home in or around a garbage dump. But for the poorest of the poor, all garbage is potential income. Plus there’s usually no rent to pay in a dump. Plus it’s easy to construct a make-shift home out of discarded materials. On the downside, some companies illegally dump toxic waste in with the regular garbage.
Over 50 families make their home beside the garbage dump in Samut Prakan, about a half-hour drive from our Mercy Centre. In March a fire struck the dump that sent out waves of toxic smoke and chemicals into their community.
Everyone exposed to the smoke fell ill. For now, none of the residents wish to leave. Awful as it is, it’s the only community they know, and they take pride and comfort in belonging somewhere, even next to a dump.
We aren’t in a position to fight the forces that dump illegal toxic waste in our communities At our best, all we can do is to make sure the children living around the dump remain safe, receive proper nutrition, and go to school. Every day we visit with more supplies, including anti-pollution masks, water, milk for the children, loads of family hygiene products, and espcially rice. Thank you gain for giving us the rice we need to help our friends, our brothers and sisters in the slums, in their times of greatest need.
By John Padorr | Advisor
By John Padorr | Advisor
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