Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls
What is and why do we support this Program?
The Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls is the Foundation’s response to the severe crisis of dramatic proportions that the Argentine Republic has been going through since the end of the year 2001. This crisis has left thousands of unemployed heads of households whose families live in poverty, hunger, sickness and exclusion.
That is the reason why our Foundation, as well as other institutions in several Argentine provinces, has had to shift away from our main mission and activities.
As it is publicly known, the Mempo Giardinelli Foundation has been conducting all kinds of cultural and educational activities such as Teachers’ Training Courses, the Grandmothers Telling Tales Program, Seminars and Lectures, among others. This is also our tenth year conducting the International Forum to Foster Books and Reading, which is today —to many people’s opinion— the most important annual educational event in Argentina.
The present crisis, though, has forced us to pay closer attention to more urgent needs. We are forced to do this, because we live in a province called Chaco —which, according to all statistics, is the hardest hit of all the Argentine provinces; the one with the greatest indigenous population, and the one whose poverty levels are estimated to affect more than 70% of the population. We are forced to do this because Culture and Education are not abstract concepts that can turn their back on people suffering from hunger.
Since we are a Non Profit NGO dedicated to education and to promoting reading, we now find ourselves compelled to add new functions to our original mission. We are compelled because there cannot be any kind of education, there cannot be any future readers if children are not provided with the basic nutrients, vitamins and minerals that they need to grow healthily.
That is the reason why we began assisting several children’s dining halls in the poorest neighboring suburbs of Resistencia, the capital of Chaco province, around the middle of the year 2002. These dining halls provide food to undernourished children, who have been either abandoned, or whose families are unable to feed.
As many others Argentinean NGO’s, we try to provide heterodox answers to the crisis, so we were obliged to diversify our activities to deal with great urgencies: provide food and reading. In the face of the apparent contradiction we deal with "both things".
Since the crisis, we have not only gone on working but we have also kept growing thanks to the proved efficiency of our Assistance Program for Children's Dining Halls that today is helping hundreds of boys and girls form Chaco as well as the provinces of Corrientes and Misiones.
We were obviously accompanied by several volunteers of the Foundation’s Story-Tellers Grandmothers Program who were convinced that reading can only be fostered with reading (affectionate, loving). Since the beginning of the Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls they have been visiting the children at the scooping halls and diners. They have provided kids with what may be their only opportunity to become acquainted with the best children’s literature.
This program officially started on July 9th, 2002. Since then, the Foundation has handed over more than five tons of foods to the following dining and milk scooping halls for children in need:
• Maná Children’s Scooping Hall, in Villa Río Negro. Resistencia.
• Casa del Sol "María Elena Walsh", in Barrio Juan Domingo Perón Neighborhood. Resistencia.
• Santa Clara de Asís Dining Hall, in La Isla Neighborhood, Villa Río Negro. Resistencia.
• Santa Ana Dining Hall, in Santa Ana Neighborhood, Resistencia (supported by Cáritas Argentina).
• San José Obrero Dining Hall, in Provincias Unidas Neighborhood, Resistencia. (supported by Cáritas Argentina).
• Espíritu Santo Dining Hall, in Barrio Santa Ana, Resistencia (supported by Cáritas Argentina).
• Madre Teresa de Calcuta Dining Hall, in Paso de la Patria, Province of Corrientes.
* School N°845 Paraje Le Bretón, 60 kilometers away from Taco Pozo and in Chaco’s Impenetrable.
* The Satellite Room of School N°346, Paraje San Isidro. Posadas, Province of Misiones.
* “Piacenza Solidaria” Milk Scooping Hall. Villa Palermo II Neighborhood. Resistencia.
At the beginning of 2005, five dining and scooping halls receive our permanent voluntary help. A total of about 600 children benefits from this assistance.
Who Benefit from Our Program?
According to official reports and several private entities, 70% of the population in Chaco can be catalogued as BNU, i.e. people with their Basic Needs Unsatisfied. These statistics place Chaco as the third poorest province in Argentina, after Formosa and Corrientes, its two neighbors.
As a consequence of the present crisis, in the area known as Gran Resistencia (Resistencia suburbs) the structural poor (those that have always been poor), and the ethnic minorities (natives from the Toba and Wichi tribes, excluded not only from a linguistic and cultural standpoint, but also as members of the work force) have been joined by a numerous and complex mass of people: the so called New Poor.
This group of people is conformed mainly by middle class families descended from Italian and Spanish immigrants, who had to lower their standard of living as a consequence of having lost their regular income, and ended up in the abyss of exclusion too. These are people who used to enjoy relative work stability. They are now unemployed, and crumbling emotionally, educationally and culturally. Many of them are actually going through desperate situations.
According to the results of the household poll conducted by the INDEC (National Institute of Census and Statistics) in 2003 there are 1,272,000 youths between the ages of 15 and 24 years old in Argentina who are totally inactive: they do not work, they do not study, and they are not looking for a job either. Chaco is the second province in the country with that type of situation.
This is the context in which through its Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls it is trying to provide relief to many families overwhelmed by the crisis or simply dismembered. This is the reason why providing food, merchandise and first quality milk to the early childhood population has become our most urgent and principal task. Culture and education in general, and reading in particular, are inevitably linked to social issues.
Do We Really Know Who We Are Assisting?
Yes, the people who work as volunteers in the halls not only provide the milk or prepare the daily meals, they also verify addresses, make sure they know the families, and call the roll daily in order to control every child’s history. Because of this, we have lists with the children’s names, addresses and I.D. numbers. We also know their grade levels, and, in many cases, unfortunately, their illiteracy level, real or functional.
On the other hand, in many cases and in coordination with the primary health assistance provided by the state or thanks to the help of doctors and nutritionists, we, the volunteers, know the children that need twice as much milk as the others due to some level on undernourishment.
Our Foundation receives donations from individual and legal entities, i.e. institutions, companies, and individual contributors both from Argentina and abroad. The monetary funds are administered on a monthly basis to ensure the stable provision of food to the so called Milk Scooping Halls, as well as Children´s Dining Halls attended by boys and girls with varying degrees of basic unsatisfied needs and/or malnutrition.
These Halls and Diners are neighbors or groups of unemployed mothers’ undertakings. We know and can give faith that they are in no way related to political parties or religious sects. They are generally located in private residences or community halls located in the poorest sections of the peripheral neighborhoods in Resistencia. These halls are run by many voluntary workers, who prepare breakfast, lunch, or an afternoon snack, and distribute portions, without asking for anything in return.
The Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls works as follows:
a) the Foundation spots existing children’s dining halls (these have been created and are supported by other persons and entities) and evaluates whether the people in charge of running them are independent, and how good their services are;
b) in some cases, when there are no existing children’s dining halls and we detect the existence of undernourished children, the Foundation itself promotes its creation and opening;
c) in every case, and depending on the funds available, there is a six month trial period during which the Foundation provides a certain amount of food, generally rice, mate (Argentine tea) sugar, oil, noodles, canned vegetables, and, above all, top quality powdered milk monthly.
d) after six months, the Foundation evaluates whether to continue, increase or decrease its assistance.
e) We keep a meticulous record, available to all donors, of all that is given to us or that we give out. Lists of all the beneficiaries, including their full name, age, ID number and grade level are kept and updated.
Has the Foundation Been Helping in Any Other Ways?
Yes. Depending on the donations we receive, we are able to supply:
• School Materials. Periodic deliveries of hundred of exercise books, pencils, pens and alike are made for the children we have registered. This is an activity we carry out every year at the beginning of the school year. To that effect, we rely on several deliveries by people who support our activities from Italy, Germany and USA. In addition it is necessary to help with our own resources to be able to perform this task.
• Stoves to heat the small halls where the children gather in shifts to receive food. And fans for the extreme Summer temperatures.
• On occasion, we supply building materials and labour for the ceiling waterproofing of one of the rooms.
• Sometimes, we buy building materials to finish those works already started by other institutions, as it was the case with the Santa Clara de Asís Dining Hall in 2004.
• Tennis shoes. Periodic deliveries of hundreds of pairs are made for the children we have registered.
• Toys. Those volunteers from the Grandmothers Telling Tales Program of the Foundation collect toys which are delivered every year for the Children´s Day (August). In addition, since Christmas 2004 we have been giving toys to all of the children of the Program in Resistencia, and we hope that we will be able to extend it to every other kid in the near future.
• Books. We are mounting modest book libraries for children in all the rooms that we attended.
Within the Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls, the Milk Scooping Hall Piacenza Solidaria plays a model role in this type of assistance.
Founded in 2004, this place represents the joint efforts of many united volunteers under the general coordination of the Foundation.
Piacenza Solidaria is a scooping hall equipped and provided by the Mempo Giardinelli Foundation. It is located in Villa Palermo II Neighborhood, in the outskirts of the City of Resistencia. The Foundation called the hall Piacenza Solidaria to honor and thank the community of the Italian city, where a group of volunteers started to provide systematic help to the Foundation and its integral work in 2003.
To start up the hall, the Foundation signed an agreement with Resistencia’s Town Council, through their Mayor, Eng. Aída Ayala. Through this agreement, the Town Council opened the facilities while our Foundation supplied the initial equipment and daily foods provisions.
With the invaluable help of those funds from Piacenza, we could open this new milk scooping hall originally created to assist 80 children and which is currently attended by 260 kids daily.…
The Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls supplied the initial equipment to this hall. It included 4 tables and benches for shifts of 80 kids, cup sets, aluminum reinforced saucepans, bread baskets, jars, plastic pitchers, wooden spoons, an array of utensils, kitchen towels, cleaning items and gas for the cookers.
Foods provided between August and December 2004
—575 kg. of powdered milk
—420 kg. of sugar
—400 kg. of bread
—24 kg. of cookies
—20 Panettones and Christmas puddings.
—48 boxes of color pencils
—48 boxes of color markers
—24 boxes of color crayons
—One hundred and fifty notebooks donated by Aerolíneas Argentinas
—Fifty boxes of six crayons each donated by Alba Artística
On Friday 17th, December, to celebrate the end of the year, we bought and handed over 260 books and 260 toys as well as several soccer balls.
Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls - Summary 2004
During 2004, 578 children were assisted directly and on a daily basis. They attend the following diners:
—School N°845 in Paraje Le Bretón (in Chaco’s Impenetrable).
—Santa Clara de Asís Dining Hall in La Isla Neighborhood-Villa Río Negro. Resistencia.
—Madre Teresa de Calcuta Dining Hall in Paso de la Patria (Corrientes).
—Satellite Room of School N°346 in Paraje San Isidro (Misiones).
—Scooping Hall “Piacenza Solidaria” in Villa Palermo II Neighborhood. Resistencia.
All these children received a total amount of more than two and a half tons of foods, detailed as follows:
Furthermore, through this program we handed over 172 pairs of tennis shoes, over 2,500 school items, 260 toys and 360 books.
In addition to what has been detailed regarding Piacenza Solidaria, the beneficiaries received:
School from Paraje LE BRETON in Taco Pozo
Number of children: 29
Attendance started in: May 2004
—200 kg. of powdered milk
—140 kg. of sugar
—Complete sets of school items (black pencils, erasers, labels, pens, color pencils, sharpeners, boxes of color markers, glue, adhesive tape and scissors) for 30 children.
Dining Hall “Santa Clara de Asís”, in Resistencia
Number of children: 170
Attendance started: since 2003
—200 kg. of powdered milk
—160 Kg. of noodles
—360 boxes of natural tomato
—Complete sets of school items (copybooks, pens, black pencils, erasers, color pencils, sharpeners, boxes of color markers, glue, adhesive tape and scissors) for 170 children.
—Clothing: 170 pairs of tennis shoes.
“Madre Teresa de Calcuta” Dining Hall in Paso de la Patria, (Corrientes).
Number of children: 60
Attendance started: since 2003
—150 kg. of sugar
—16 kg. of cookies
—36 bottles of 1 liter of oil
—Clothing: Several garments and used shoes.
School 346 in Paraje San Isidro, Posadas, Misiones
Number of children: 59
Attendance started in: May 2004
—200 kg. of powdered milk
—Complete sets of school items (black pencils, erasers, labels, pens, color pencils, sharpeners, boxes of color markers, glue, adhesive tape and scissors) for 60 children.
Every person, individuals or public or private legal entities, as well as organism, major foundations, companies and any kind of transparent entity can contribute to our Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls with voluntary donations of money or goods.
In fact, every contribution given to the Foundation, every donation received is always and in every case allocated in a proportionally important way to support this Program.
To this end, we want to highlight –for all those people are visiting this site and reading these lines- that the Mempo Giardinelli Foundation is a non-profit NGO dully registered in the Inspection Board of Justice and AFIP (Federal Administration of Public Income). This means that every donation is dully recorded and that the institution’s accounting is transparent. Our Annual Reports and Balance Sheets are submitted annually on the corresponding date and following the corresponding requisites and our receipts are official.
In addition, it is important to stress the fact that, as we are a group of volunteers, the Foundation’s administration and most of the activities are free and do not represent additional charges. As a consequence, practically all the contributions we receive go to the planned and stated purposes and are not spent on salaries or traveling expenses.
Regarding donations, we practically need everything. Not only in the Foundation in general but in each specific Program.
Regarding the Assistance Program for Children’s Dining Halls, we are always in need of donations of:
* Funds to buy food, storage and transport. Specifically, we need powdered milk, sugar, yerba (Argentine infusion), canned foods, packaged cookies, cooking oil, noodles, rice and meat.
• Kitchen items: saucepans, plastic dinner sets, cleaning items.
* Permanent supply of gas cylinders.
* Heaters, fans, fridges, cooking stoves. And we also need sewing machines.
• Currently, we need building materials.
• Tennis shoes, undershirts, coats.
• Toys for boys and girls.
• Reading books and/or handicrafts books for children. It is one of the most problematic items since we need a lot of them and they are not cheap.
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THANKS A LOT!!!