2007's family
Click here to see a list of donators
Click here to see the THANKYOU letter from Mireya in Spanish
Click here to see the SECOND AND FINAL report on Mireya's family
Click here to see the FIRST report on Mireya's family
Click here to see how your money was spent
Esta es la familia SERRANO ESCOBAR.
The family is made up of the mother, Mireya and her 4 children. 6 years ago her husband abandoned them. They haven't heard from him since. Sometimes she gets some money by washing and ironing people's clothes. She gets up at dawn to make breakfast/lunch and dinner for her children, then wakes them up, sends them to school (they walk for about 30 mins to get to school) and then goes to work. She only returns at about 8pm. At lunch and dinner time, the children have to heat up and serve their own food and do their own dishes.
The little money she makes is used to pay for their food, the bills and last but not least, for her children's education. As you can see in the photographs, the ceiling of their house is mostly made from polystyrene and the walls are made of cardboard. This means that when it rains, the water pours in. They have 2 single beds that the 5 of them share. The food is also scarce at their house, which can be noticed in the children's height and weight. Aguapanela (sugary water), bread and rice are what they eat most days.
Camilo Andrés (10 years old, 5th grade), Cristian David (9 years old, 4th grade), Paola Yasmin (8 years old, 2nd grade) are about to finish their school year. Nicolás, the youngest one (6 years old), should start his first year of school next February. Although they go to a public school, Mireya has told us she will not have enough money to even buy the notebooks and the items required for them to go to school, so she's not sure they'll all go to school next year.
Christmas? Apart from going to church, they won't do anything else to celebrate Christmas. Mireya hopes she'll be given the chance to work for at least a couple of hours either on 24th or 25th December, but she thinks it won't be the case.
Are there poorer families in Colombia? Of course there are. However the reason we want to help Mireya's family then is because she has given her children lots of love but unfortunately love is not enough to survive in our world nowadays. She has been working REALLY hard to give her children a decent future and she's now about to give up. We believe that with a little help she may recover the faith and confidence in herself and she'll keep working hard for herself and for her children.
With your help we hope to be able to:
- Get the stationery, the books and the uniforms for them to go to school next year
- Provide them with groceries so that not only can they have a decent Christmas dinner but they can start to eat some food other than aguapanela, bread and rice
- If possible get some materials to seal/waterproof their walls and ceiling
PLEASE HELP US HELP MIREYA'S FAMILY!
All amounts will be appreciated. $1 is not too little and in Colombian Pesos is enough to buy 1 litre of milk, 6 eggs and some fruit.
To check the progress of how much money we have collected and to make sure that your donation is part of it, look for your initials in the chart on this page.
Claudia will be going to Colombia in December. She'll personally buy all the things and keep the receipts which will be both put on the webpage and kept in a file that you can access when Claudia comes back in 2008.
Photographs will also be taken when the donations are given to Mireya and will be uploaded here.
Note that you cannot add this to your tax return.
MUCHAS GRACIAS. At the moment, Mireya and the children are not expecting anything so we're sure she'll really appreciate your help, no matter what we manage to give her.
