Physical Health Mexico Project #13115

Support our Centre for Disable Children in Mexico

by Action Change (Formerly GVI Trust)

Project Report | Sep 12, 2014
"The Amazing Race" - Playa Fundraising Challenge

By Sophie Birkett | Head of Operations, Charitable Trust

Dear Supporter,

On the 27^th of June at 9:30am, 12 volunteers left the playa house excited and anxious, as they did not know what the day would bring them. They were told to wear running shoes, sunscreen and to bring water – nothing more, nothing less. They were escorted to the meeting point in two overcrowded collectivos buzzing with energy; the Amazing Race, Playa del Carmen edition was to start in 30 minutes.

A week prior, the volunteers were introduced to the idea of this year’s mini-challenge fundraising event. They were inspired with the idea of being able to help the community projects even more than they already had. Our volunteers have been generously giving their time by being on projects here physically; however, there are larger aspects that can be covered by monetary donations. Such things include replacing broken/ flimsy furniture for the children, supplying medicine or equipment for the vets, and scholarships for children whose mums work in the school (as their wage was paying for their child’s school fee, earning them little to no money). As all of them have worked in the projects and had fallen in love with the people they were fundraising for, the fire burned even more and it motivated them to bring their cause to those back home.

This year, the staff organized a mini-race in the style of the popular television show, ‘The Amazing Race’. The lucky 12 were split into 4 groups; blue, green, red and yellow and the aim was to out-raise the other groups before the race, and to out-race the other groups on the day.

Friday aka. Race day arrived, and it was revealed that they raised $2,434.45 in 4 days; smashing the initial goal! They had successfully completed the first half of the challenge and with the air of excitement; they were ready to start the final part. Equipped with only 100 pesos ($8USD) they were to navigate their way around Playa del Carmen to “secret” locations and complete challenges. Except for the Yellow team who raised the most, who won an additional 20 pesos to their budget (less than $2USD, big spender!) and the lead start. The race was not going to be easy, but some teams found themselves lost for an hour or waiting for collectivos for 45 minutes. The Blue team won with a time of 1 hour and 45 minutes, and the yellow team finishing at 3 hours and 10 minutes). Congratulations to teams Red and Green for spending ONLY 45 pesos in travel!

A special mention and thank you to our partners at the Save the Children ludoteca, Special needs School and Coco’s cat rescue for being a part of our locations in our race.

But most of all, a giant congratulations to our incredible 12; Beth, Lauren, Nandita, Julia, Freddy, Daisy, Dani, Kim, Katie, Alli and Hannah for all that you’ve done. It was a successful challenge, successful fundraise and an incredibly fun day that hopefully you all will remember for the rest of your lives. These funds will be added to those raised through GlobalGiving for the improvement of the Ludoteca, Equine Therapy and Integral Care Center in Playa del Carmen and Coco’s Cat Rescue; whether it is new equipment, furniture, supplies or scholarships.

All the best

GVI Mexico

Links:

http://www.gvi.org

Permalink

Jul 3, 2014
Certifying partners with Emergency First Responder

By Sophie Birkett | Head of Operations, Charitable Trust

Dear Supporter,

This month has been a very active and successful! A major success was the delivering of the Emergency First Responder (EFR) training course to our partners here in Playa del Carmen. Not only are we equipping them with lifesaving skills, we are creating a safer environment for the wider community. Knowledge is empowering in all forms, but the critical knowledge of how to potentially save a life or prevent death, transcends this.

There are approx. 4 million traffic accidents registered in Mexico each year, claiming the lives of 24,000 people. In conjunction with work related accidents and other incidents of random nature, it is imperative that all of the staff within GVI and our partners are equipped to assist in these emergencies. By providing emergency treatment you could be potentially saving their lives, or minimizing the lasting damage to their health. This if possible, is even more critical to our partners who work with vulnerable people on a daily basis. The children are vulnerable and in our care, we therefore have a duty to do everything in our power to maintain a safe environment.

In total we have trained all 9 Ludotecarias from the Save the Children Ludotecas in Playa del Carmen and Tulum, and 3 members of the Special Needs School from the Equine therapy and Integral Care center throughout the month of April. In preparation for their training the new EFR recruits were given a booklet of basic information to read to assist them in understanding the material that was going to be presented to them. During this initial phase the EFR teaches you how to respond to an emergency, what you should do, who you should contact and how to administer potentially lifesaving treatment until professional help arrives.

This training included how to respond to emergencies with children. This is particularly relevant for the Ludotecarias who deal with up to 100 children in one day. It is also relevant to the special needs school, for although they are dealing with children with far more complex medical needs, the basic treatment in life threatening situations is universal and an essential skill for anyone working with vulnerable people to possess.

In addition to dealing with urgent life threatening injury, the EFR also trains practitioners in secondary injury care such as splints, minor head injuries and other non-life threatening injuries. These are the skills that are most frequently required by emergency responders, particularly those working with children. The ludotecarias often have to deal with large numbers of play related injuries such as scraped knees and bump heads. Equally sometimes more than a basic dressing can be required and a more advanced skill is required to treat the injury.

After a challenging couple of days of training, our brave recruits had to toil through an exam about everything they had learnt, that they all passed with excellence.

It was a pleasure to share imperative knowledge with our implementing partners. The EFR training was a chance to help improve the organizations and ultimately make the projects safer for everyone involved. The wider community of Playa del Carmen (inclusive of every child, person and tourist) benefits from having more people in possession of these skills should some accident befall them.

Links:

http://www.gvi.org

Permalink

May 29, 2014
Save The Children Ludoteca Stereo and Whiteboard

By Sophie Birkett | Head of Operations, Charitable Trust

Dear Supporter,

The children we work with that attend the toy libraries (ludotecas) come from different social environments and backgrounds within the Yucatan pennisula; the toy libraries were created to offer a safe environment where children can go to play and learn about their rights which empower them to stand after themselves and become better citizens. The toy libraries are free and kids can attend it all day long if they want to. The ladies that run it are women from the community (mothers) that have been hired and trained by Save the Children to be in charge of the ludotecas. They have 9 of them in total in Quintana Roo, and like many NGOs, Save the Children also rely on donations to run.

The funds that we raised this time thanks to your donations, have helped to buy a stereo and a white board that was very much needed by one of the ludoteca we support. It might look like a stereo and a white board are not vital, however, activities such as music and dance, which are a core value on every children’s development; require a stereo and until now, they had been using a couple of small speakers that didn’t allow the children to hear. Also, they had a very old white board for different activities which was broken. Now they can use their new board for their different activities.

Every week they have a topic which can go from children’s rights to different values like solidarity, empathy, environmental education, health and nutrition, etc. They empower these values and topics through different workshops during the day; sometimes the volunteers prepare presentations on a GVI laptop and have the children sitting down around the computer. Therefore, we have given a down payment to buy projector too so that all the children watch the screen which enables better understanding of the topic presented.

I hope you can see that the items will really enhance the children's experience at the ludotecas which are greatly needed.

Thank you for supporting this project.

All the best

GVI Mexico

Links:

http://www.gvi.org

Permalink

‹ 1 ... 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.