At first news from the board of the foundation:
After 15 years of continuous and valuable cooperation Prof. Radeisen left the board by 1st January 2020. Replacing him is Isabell Nordhausen, a young employee of the charitable organization INKOTAe.V., for which she is regularly visiting some projects in Central America. During visiting the INKOTA project in Guatemala in 2019 Isabell could already meet with Sister Teresa and could have a look at the school at the landfill in Guatemala City. Of course Isabell speaks the spanish language very well and fluently .
Furthermore we altered the statues of RUVD by 30th june 2020 – with the approval of the Berlin Senator for Justice, Consumer Rights and Antidiscrimination- , that we want to stop the support of former soviet prisoners of war, because, 75 years after war`s end, there are not living any more persons entitled for donations .
In those 15 years after the beginning of the foundation`s work we have transferred 144.000.- Euro to the organization Kontakte, which gave the money in 300.-Euro parts to more or less 480 persons. These then wrote letters back, describing all the terrible things they had experienced and had to suffer during their prison time. Most of them were very moved by our gesture of reconciliation and I (Irmingard Weise) am very glad that we could still reach such a lot of people though it was so late.
Now to the projects :
1. School Francisco Coll at the landfill in Guatemala City.
Lessons stopped in April 2020, there is a strict curfew and therefore the people living at the landfill have no opportunity of earning money. The pupils resp. their parents can fetch learning sheets from the school to continue lessons, besides, there are distributed school tools .Furthermore the sisters give advice to the families about hygiene, tidiness and health. But there is still the problem of nutrition. Therefore we transferred an extra donation of 2.000.- Euro to finance the distribution of bundles with basic dry food to the pupils and their parents while fetching the learning sheets from school.
2. In a similar way we cared for the families of our scholars. Here Sister Teresa told us that the learning continues quite well, meaning that some scholars learn by e-mail (mainly the auxiliary nurses), some are also getting learning sheets ( the teachers for kindergarten) and those qualifying for professional nursery are working in hospitals all the same.
So we can state, that
1. despite of corona the training of all scholars continues well,
2. that therefore no money is left and
3. that it is necessary to transfer also money for families in need to buy food.
So we transferred 2.000.- Euro also to Sister Rosa Maria at Chichicastenango.
She writes us, that she can fill about 116 packets with each containing
2,5 kg dry milk, 3 kg flour for tortillas, 2,5 kg dry beans, 2,5 kg rice, 3 packets of noodles, 1.5 kg sugar and 1 l of oil.
3. CAICC in Bolivia
Here the situation was complicated already before the pandemia for several reasons:
– there is no clear political guidance in Bolivia since Morales fled out of the country, the right wing Interim government postpones elections permanently,
– the communal administrations do not grant any more support to the CAICC since March and this is very serious, because their contribution made up to 65 % of the project`s budget,
– there are no other supporters besides RUVD
– and finally the bus has broken down some time ago and they could not find a new bus until now ,though they have a fund of about 31.000.- USD.
Then came the quarantine in the middle of March and the CAICC was of course completely closed.
The majority of the employees was dismissed , wages were only paid for march. Still working are Meri as director and Roberto as accountant.
The children of the CAICC and their families, being in prison or not, were hit especially hard by the crisis, because now they have no possibility to earn money. So Meri took the task of delivering regular food supplies. Receivers are between 12 and 27 families; in all she could until now deliver food five times in form of food baskets, but also fresh meat and sausages. Besides she organized a workshop about the pandemia and the virus.
A roast chicken chain, called Pollos Sofia, had generously given fresh chicken meat to the CAICC and the organization San Lucas provided their transporter so that Meri could deliver the food.
RUVD is regularly transferring 9.000.- Euro per year, in 2 halves, each at the 1st of january and the 1 st of july. Our contribution of july will be spent for further delivery of food and maybe for some outstanding debts like wages. The money spared for the bus should not be spent if possible.
The future of the CAICC is not quite clear. RUVD alone cannot finance the project, that needs, in normal times, some 55.000.- USD for budget. We will see what is happening in the future.