Save the Children

Thanks to supporters like you, Save the Children is able to support children around the world. Your donation helps make a difference in the life of kids like Angelis, 13. 

Venezuela’s spiraling political and economic crisis has had a huge effect on every aspect of life there: the ability to find and afford food, access safe water, receive critical health care services, and beyond. For Angelis – who is currently living with her mother, Cynthia, and four younger siblings in an informal settlement in Colombia’s border town of Maicao – one of the hardest parts about the situation back home in Venezuela was that she was no longer able to keep going to school. “I really like to go to school,” she says, “so this was really difficult for me.”

Before the crisis began, the family lived well in Maracaibo, the coastal capital city of Venezuela’s Zulia State. But as the economic situation got worse and worse, Cynthia lost her job and could no longer provide for her children. Unable to survive any longer in Venezuela, the family eventually relocated to Colombia.

Since relocating to Maicao a few months ago, Angelis has been unable to formally enroll in school. However, she attends the Save the Children Temporary Learning Center (TLC) in the informal settlement where she’s living – and she is a star pupil. Her tutor says she is curious, diligent, studious, and always ready to learn.

“I love it,” Angelis says of the TLC. “I learn a lot. They teach us a lot of educational things, like math and reading, and also about all of our rights. Like, the rights that we have as children… They teach us a lot of things we didn’t know before.”

Cynthia has also noticed the impacts the TLC has had on her daughter. “It’s nice for the children to have a space to just be kids,” she says. It’s definitely helped them a lot, you can see it.”

As for Angelis, she hopes to continue studying so that she can achieve her dream of becoming a lawyer someday. “I want to help people,” she says. “I am going to be someone really important, someone really special. I think I already am.”

Links:

• Save the Children - Venezuela