Infancia Solidaria

Temporary Foster Family Program “Children of One World“

“ Children of one world “is a program under which children from developing countries are brought to Spain to live temporarily with foster families . The same has been done with children from the Sahara or Ukraine for many years. The title of the program arose from the fact that in Infancia Solidaria we believe that children don't deserve the three worlds adults have created for themselves.

Therefore the program is about bringing children from those countries so they can experience a different reality (we don't mean better) from their own. It is about them living with Spanish children and hoping that communication between them will enrich both of them. It is about planting seeds in the minds of children; the ones here and the ones there.

It is ultimately about children from here getting to know and value the difficult situation in which other children live, making them understand the wonderful feeling of solidarity with other children, in contrast with the egocentrism with which most of them live.

Last but not least, as it is probably the most important, it is about children from there experiencing another reality and that the seed they take back with them in their mind will grow creating a feeling that it is possible, through study and hard work, to break the circle of poverty in which past generations lived and in which they themselves were born.

Write to us or answer the questionnaire which will be sent directly to our mail. (Foster Family Program questionnaire)

2008

On the fifth of September 08 our twenty-three friends, together with their two accompanying adults, flew back to Ghana .

The only incidence we had was a bout of scabies and 4 cases of malaria which these children developed soon after they arrived. They were all duly treated and cured by the health services of their area.

Besides that, the trip has been very positive, as much for the children from Ghana who enjoyed themselves tremendously and who discovered a new reality which hopefully will enhance their criterion when making important decisions, as for the Spanish children who have seen for themselves that there are children less fortunate and who need their help. It is our intention, through this, to help form, in the medium term, committed adults and social transformers in Ghana , and also adults committed to solidarity in Spain .

These are the trips we hope to organize this year:

30 children from Guatemala in November/December

Any person interested in being a foster family can write to us at is@infanciasolidaria.org . At the NGO we give priority to families with children but other people are not excluded.

On the fifth of November 11 Guatemalan friends arrived in Madrid . They will stay with us until the 27 th of December.

Thank you to everybody for helping us and helping them.

2007

Throughout this year we have brought two groups of children: 20 from the Iraqi Kurdistan during July/August and 14 from Guatemala in November/December

The school holidays in Guatemala are in November and December every year. In 2006 we brought the children during the summer and therefore had to supplement these two months with extra classes in the afternoon ( children in Guatemala have classes only in the morning so they can help at home in the afternoons ) but we saw that the effort for these children was too big even though it had been an incredible and very positive experience ( as proved by the psychological follow-up done on them and whose excellent results show a very positive change in their attitude towards studying and their desire to come back ) so this year we thought that it would be better to bring them during their school holidays .Since these dates are more difficult for Spanish families we could only bring 14 children.

The experience with Kurdistan has been just as positive but a little more difficult because of the language . The emotional affinity between the Spanish families, specially their children, and the other children has been more complicated because of the problems in communication due to the language barrier but, nevertheless, very positive from the samples of mutual affection we saw at the airport and in the messages that go back and forward.

It was also a positive experience for the Iraqi Kurdistan authorities since all the children have shown, upon return, great enthusiasm, a desire to come back to Spain and a more proactive attitude towards their studies and problems.

So, overall, we are delighted with the results of these two trips and we miss our friends whom we are hoping to see again.

2006

The Temporary Foster Families program started in the summer of 2006. We travelled to the area where we wanted to work and coordinated with the NGO Edelac : Escuela de la Calle the transfer of 25 children ( age range between 6 and 12 ) to Spanish families under a foster family regime.

We are always going to work with minors, boys and girls with ages between 6 and 12. The nationality of these minors will be, for 2006, Guatemalan even though we anticipate, in future years, to work with minors from any developing country. Many of these children live under a family situation of extreme vulnerability (fathers or mothers in prison or alcoholic; living with grandparents, etc) and all of them are schooled in Edelac. We thereby attempt to serve as an argument for this local NGO so that many other minors who live on the street or work where they get at least some payment, accept to be schooled via Edelac with the additional incentive to travel to Madrid . We are convinced that education is, in the long run, the best way to fight poverty. For the time being, in Edelac, children can only study until they are twelve years old. Moreover, their family situations are often so critical that the need for money leads them to drop out of school.

Infancia Solidaria would like to awaken in these minors the wish to achieve different goals from what they are used to since birth, allowing them to perceive a different reality which will help them decide which path to follow for the rest of their lives.

The mothers of the Guatemalan children sent us a thank you note: