Elderly Support in Latin America

I hope all is well with you and you managed to celebrate Thanksgiving in some form this year. With 2020 finally drawing to a close we must turn our attention to preparing ourselves as best we can for 2021.

To help our Covid-19 recovery programme, and as part of this year’s Appeal, GlobalGiving will be sharing $1 million on Giving Tuesday on 1^st December along with donations made on this day. This opportunity is huge for us as we strive to purchase all the necessary supplies (gels, disinfectants, soaps etc) to make each classroom safe for when the children come back to school in 2021. We also want to continue to provide basic daily food so at least they have something in their stomachs to aid learning! If you can donate to this page on 1^st December we’ll receive more bang for your buck and be well-prepared for the months to come – thank you!

In addition to this and to aid our medium-term recovery programmes from the Covid-19 turmoil, GlobalGiving is offering a 200% matching on all new regular donations up to $200 set up between 14-18^th December. The match applies to the first installment paid during this time and the matching will be paid after four payments (in April 2021). This will really help us keep stocks full as well as providing a food programme for the children well into the new year. Obviously keeping the children protected in the school lessens the chance of spreading the virus back into their houses where their elderly relatives live which is of paramount importance. Please note, the 200% matching applies to new regular donations only set up between 14-18^th December.

You may have seen in the news the destruction wreaked by Hurricanes Eta and Iota in Central America recently. Our communities in Honduras were badly effected and we have started a recovery programme to help them get back on their feet. This coming Giving Tuesday and the regular donations will help a lot with this over the coming weeks and months, especially with providing supplies for the elderly population.

Over two tonnes of emergency food has been provided in our communities with priority given to the elderly and disabled due to severe shortages due to Covid-19. The supplies included rice, pasta, cooking oil, oatmeal, sardines, salt and face masks. We plan to do further emergency food drops over the coming months whilst the Covid-19 pandemic continues to restrict movement. 

Further supply drops are planned over the coming weeks as the communities reel from the devastation wreaked by Covid-19 and we will do what we can to help them get back on their feet whilst protecting their elderly kin.

Thank you for all your support this year, as in previous years: one more push and we can really start to plan for 2021 with your help.

Cheers

As you may have seen in the news, Latin America is currently a major hotspot for Covid-19. We are putting a priority on immediate vital emergency food supplies to the families, especially for the elderly and disabled, and hygiene products for the schools during the current Covid-19 pandemic in Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Perú. Lockdowns, restrictions on travel and isolation have taken a heavy toll in the communities.

To give us a big boost GlobalGiving will be 50% matching all donations up to $50 between 14th-18th September as we aim to provide tonnes of emergency food supplies including pastas, rice, cooking oil, salt, sugar, oatmeal, sardines and other items to hundreds of families as well as boxes of soaps, hand sanitizers, fase masks and disinfectants for all our classrooms in all our countries.  

With your brilliant donations, matched at 50% up to $50 by GlobalGiving, we will be able to make huge inroads into our Covid-19 response across all our communities in Latin America.

We have managed to distribute hundreds of face masks for the elderly though there is still so much more to do. With food at a bare minimum we have distributed various small supplies though want to really make an impact over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you so much for anything you can donate to our immediate emergency food programme. Please feel free to share this with friends, family and work colleagues as every little helps!
Cheers

I hope all is well and you are keeping safe during these unprecedented times. Despite all schools in the region being closed since March due to Covid-19 our local teachers have been busy getting homework to the children’s houses on a regular basis. Due to the extreme poverty where we work there isn’t internet so all this is done on foot, with obvious precautions taken.

We continue to make face masks in our Plan Corte sewing machine project at Lake Atitlán, Guatemala to provide for the elderly and most at risk. A little bit of practice needed sometimes though we’re getting there. Accross all our projects we will be doing all we can to protect the elderly from contracting Covid-19 by providing the students with hand-sanitizer. temperature checks and soaps whn they enter and leave the schools once they are re-opened. In Ecuador the local families follow beliefs passed through the generations and burn certain plants and herbs including eucalyptus, laurel, rue, marco and incense by their doors and windows in the late afternoons to protect their homes from illness. 

Latin America is now the hotspot for the global pandemic so we could be weeks away from re-opening though that doesn’t mean we have paused our work. If anything, we are more concentrated on coming out the other side and prepared for the future. This includes making hand-sanitizers, thermometers and soaps available for every child and teacher each day when they are finally allowed to come back to school.

To help us through this crisis, GlobalGiving will be holding their July Bonus Day on Wednesday 15^th July with the following matching options.

A donation of $100-$499 will be matched at 15%

A donation of $500-$749 will be matched at 30%

A donation of $750-$1,000 will be matched at 50%

Fly The Phoenix will also be planting one tree per $10 donated in our effort to help offset the problems of deforestation and the effects of climate change as trees help reduce carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So every $10 donated on 15^th July means one more tree planted. Please note, this tree matching is done directly through Fly The Phoenix and not through GlobalGiving; please send any questions around the tree matching campaign to info@thephoenixprojects.org (and not GlobalGiving!). Brilliant!

During times like these we understand that charitable donations are generally nudged lower down in household budgets as belts are tightened to prepare for an uncertain immediate future so we thank you for anything you can donate.

Bearing this in mind we have come up with an idea where we can all help each other. We recently started a small sewing project in Guatemala to help single teen mothers and they are producing double-layered facemasks with an opening to insert a filter if required. All proceeds from the sales of the masks will go towards materials and postage, income for the mothers, help for the elderly, reforestation and support for our local teachers across Fly The Phoenix. Please do contact me on info@thephoenixprojects.org if you are interested in receiving more information on how to receive these masks.

Please do stay safe during these unprecedented times and be sure in the knowledge that we will do all we can to keep the projects running successfully now and in the future, thanks to your brilliant donations.

Cheers

As many countries make wearing facemasks obligatory due to Covid-19 our Plan Corte (sewing machines) in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala so far has made and distributed 1,000 double-layered washable masks to the elderly and 300 families who cannot afford them.

We plan to continue producing more to make sure that anyone who needs a mask has one, especially the elderly and physically disabled, including amputees due to diabetes, another high risk group.

It is generally accepted that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 will affect us all for months and possibly years to come. Over the long-term we aim to provide hand sanitizer and supplies of soap for all our students in Honduras, Ecuador, Peru and Guatemala for when they enter and leave the schools each day to reassure parents that it is a safe place and also to reduce the chance of bringing the virus into the schools and taking the virus back home and potentially afflicting the elderly.

Once the various country lock-downs are lifted and prices get back to normal we will try and source all this in bulk so we can budget for the coming months and years, although whatever the cost turns out to be it will be money well-spent in the long-run.

Whilst we know times are hard at the moment and the economic outlook is uncertain, we would appreciate any donation to this page so we can continue to protect the elderly in our countries, not just now with masks though in the long-term future with soaps and hand sanitzers for the schools to stop Covid-19 entering the homes.

Thank you so much in advance and please stay safe.

Cheers

I hope all is well and you are staying as safe as you can during these testing times. Whilst Latin America has so far not been affected as badly as other continents the governments are taking no chances and have implemented severe travel restrictions, school closures and isolation policies. All our projects are currently closed and the elderly in particular are being protected in their homes.

None of our communities have been affected by Covid 19 and they are taking all the precautions they can, though lack of running water is an obvious issue. For example in Perú the families normally only receive water from 5am to 7am to store in buckets for the rest of the day although this has always been inconsistent week by week.

In Honduras the college students, as part of their course, received training in Covid 19 information and were due to make presentations to thirty rural schools in various communities though the government have since implemented a complete shutdown. These presentations will now be made once these rules are relaxed and it is considered safe to do so. As part of our Ecuador charity challenge we will be reforesting 1,000 trees around Tabla Chupa, the natural spring which is the source of water for many families in the region.

Water has always been an issue where we work. Previously we installed water-storage systems in Guatemala and Perú and we will be implementing a program of rain-collection tanks in all our communities to store water for the dry seasons in the future which will help families and irrigation for our Sustainable Plan Huertos.

The projects will continue in the future

During times like these we understand that charitable donations are generally nudged lower down in household budgets as belts are tightened to prepare for an uncertain immediate future.

Thanks to many of you over the past twenty years, which have themselves been extremely turbulent at times, we have been able to continue to highlight the plight of the communities where we work and we have been able to do something about it sustainably through thick and thin. Now is no different.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks and months, we will strive to continue our work as best we can with all the resources available to us during this time and for years to come.

Little By Little Campaign

For all our US donors, GlobalGiving will be matching all individual donations up to $50 by 50% between Monday 23^rd March to Friday 27^th March which is brilliant news and will definitely help us through the next few weeks and months if you can donate, no matter how small.

To put this into examples, a donation of just $5 would be $7.50 for two weeks of gas for school meals.

A donation of $10 would be $15 for one month of classroom materials.

A donation of $20 would be $30 for one month of fruit for a class of children.

A donation of $30 would be $45 for a traditional celebration with food in a school.

A donation of $40 would be $60 for a small sustainable income vegetable garden plan for a family for years to come.

A donation of $50 would be $75 for one week’s salary for a local graduate teacher in charge of between 20 and 30 students.

We as Phoenix will also be matching our reforestation program of planting one tree per $10 donated in our effort to help offset the problems of deforestation and the effects of climate change as trees help reduce carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So every $10 donated this week means two trees planted. Brilliant!

If you can, please help our communities in Honduras, Ecuador, Perú and Guatemala make the most of this fantastic opportunity and donate whatever you can this week – as you can see, it makes more than a difference and we get much more bang for your buck. Please also feel free to share this link with friends, work colleagues and family!

At this stage we will be undertaking our charity challenges in Perú and Ecuador in May and June still, which obviously depends on advice from local and international authorities (and not social media!).

Many thanks for anything you can donate and please take care.

Cheers