Sponsor a child |
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Please call us or send an e-mail if you wish to receive our sponsorship file
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Where ? |
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Alberto, in 2002, in the mine.. |
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The miners of Potosi say that with all the money extracted from the Cerro Rico a bridge could have been built between there and Madrid. Another bridge, constructed with the bones of the 8 million workers who lost their lives in the mines over the last 3 centuries, could also ensure the return journey…
At an altitude of 4’200 meters, Potosi is situated in Bolivia’s poorest department. The economic situation today is catastrophic and has been since 1985, when prices of minerals dropped dramatically, creating 80% unemployment among the local population |
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For whom ? |
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| Child workers - slaves of the mine… |
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In their struggle to survive, families have no option but to send their children to work in the mine, rather than sending them to school. Here they are victims of appalling working conditions: extreme temperatures, landslides, poisoning from arsenic vapour and the cyanide used in mineral production, explosions using dynamite and silicosis. |
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Their life ? |
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... and 3 years later, in our Jatun Ayllu centre
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- In mountainside shacks
- Beds made of stones in which 7 people sleep
- Cold and wind on the altiplano (no heating or electricity)
- Disease and contaminated water
- Thin gruel with pasta or rice as their main meal
- Violence on a daily basis (alcoholism of both parents and minors, sexual abuse etc.)
- No schools or healthcare
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Objective : 100 sponsorships or family scholarships to save the child-slaves from the mine |
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YES, I will take part in the campaign to eradicate child labour by giving a family scholarship, helping a whole family to escape from unbearable conditions…(2 parents and their 5 children)
With 50 Sfr(30 euros) a month or 600 Sfr (360 euros) a year, a whole family will be fed and… |
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The children will :
- Receive school material and decent clothing
- Go to school rather than down the mine
- Take advantage of the educational support and literacy workshop
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The parents will :
- Learn to read and write so that they can receive an interest-free micro credit from Voix-Libres
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"I don’t want to die” |
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- Integrating neglected children in a community where they will find their place and be able to express their talents.
- Giving parents the opportunity of becoming real examples for their children.
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I’ve been working in the Potosi mines since I was 7. I’m a ‘dynamiter’ – I prepare the dynamite fuses and then I light them. Then I have to run as fast as I can away from the explosion. I work from 7 in the morning until 7 in the evening and I never see daylight.
Help me to come out of the dark. I’d love to see the sun!
I don’t want to die…help me out of this living hell… |
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3 reasons for choosing Voix Libres scholarships |
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- 100% of your money goes entirely and directly to the children and their families
- ‘Knock-on’ sponsorships : each family helped is responsible for helping another family to change their miserable existence
- You are kept fully and transparently informed by the Voix Libres newspaper
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| With your help, how many families will leave ignorance and fatalism behind, becoming literate so that they may become the future leaders of this clandestine people, abandoned by the world? |
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Sponsorships in a spirit of community |
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Sponsorships are offered in a spirit of community, without children’s names being given, in order to protect the beneficiaries from injustice and jealousy and to protect the donors from excessive demands for help from the families concerned.They are not considered as ‘handouts’ but as springboards towards autonomy for future community leaders.
Sponsorship has a ‘knock-on’ effect :
Each family is responsible for changing the existence of another family. |
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Please feel free to decide on the amount of your sponsorship yourself ! |
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