Oruro Red Alert

We are now in Oruro which is a forgotten mining city that suffered dreadfully during the Spanish conquests of the 1500’s. One of the only reasons to go to Oruro, besides mining, is the Oruro Carnival with its pagan origins and dancing devils. At 3,700 metres above sea level this is a challenging environment due to the altitude, with temperatures ranging from -6C to +27C on some days making it extremely hard for street living children.

Oruro is where Jonnie has been volunteering this year following Cochabamba last year. He has been working with the Red Alert team in Oruro, a City-wide project that identifies and works with local projects helping street living, street working and 'high risk' children. The main principle being to help the local projects and people do what they do better and enabling them to work with more children. At the same time linking or networking these existing local projects and people together with Churches, other organisations, civil society groups and Government (where possible). Red Alert provides training to run projects better; improving care for the children, improving the project’s facilities, and applications for grants to improve their work and to help them to reach more children. Red Alert Oruro is supported by Toybox and linked to Viva Latin America, who also provide consultancy. In supporting and funding this work Toybox enables local people to develop, improve what they do and reach many more children thereby producing locally driven change by those who know best ... the people of Oruro.

Oruro Red Alert is a great example where locally driven initiatives with support begin making a massive difference. The team in Oruro are dedicated and committed to this and are innovative about what is needed in Oruro.

We visited Casa Vida, the new refuge for street children and children at high risk, which Red Alert has stimulated. This project is funded by some local mine owners which the Red Alert team introduced to each other and encouraged to consider this project. As a member of Red Alert this very necessary project can benefit from grants and training. We met about 14 children out of a total capacity of about 24 that the Refuge can accommodate. This is a badly ‘hurting’ group of children and there is a great deal of psychological support for them. The aim being to reintegrate the children with their families where possible, or transition to alternative arrangements such as extended family, fostering or other projects that specialise in specific needs. We were fortunate to be able to give flower shaped cards, prepared by Toybox supporters with encouraging messages on the back, to these children from which the pleasure this gave to them was so good to see. We called in one evening and saw most of the children had their flowers stuck on their bed or the nearest wall. These flowers were clearly very important to them and we made sure they understood who had made them.

Philadelphia Church has an amazing preventative project and takes care of abandoned children. The dedicated team of volunteers from the local Church works with over 90 children. This project has benefited from grants and training that has helped the project grow to reach this number of children so well. The grants have helped with extending the facilities and also to provide sewing machines which some of the older girls are beginning to learn practical skills. In the evenings the mothers are also given the opportunity to learn to sew. The aim being that in cases where the children are working on the street the mothers gain a skill with which to gain employment and therefore makes it possible for the children to go to school instead of working. They also have a medical programme for the children and their families run by a qualified doctor voluntarily.

We went out early one morning to meet the ‘Oruro shoe shiners’. Many of these are either street living or street working children. Street living children in Oruro have a hard life. Jonnie, our son, currently lives in Oruro and is working with these children. His blog dated 30^th April describes and explains the street children situation in Oruro and what is happening to change this. Link to Jonnie's blog

We met one of the shoe shiners who Alastair met 3 years previously. He had lost a hand during this time and has clearly had a harder life as a consequence. He is certainly keen to change his life and has adapted cleverly to manage with one hand. Rigo needs our prayers as his options are further limited by only having one hand.

We went to a community near a polluted lake on the edge of Oruro. This is such a poor area that the lake is the washing facility for thousands of people. There are no sewerage facilities or bathrooms in most of the houses that are simply uninhabitable from a western perspective. A Church, Jesus El Senor, is in the middle of this area working with children and their families preventatively. This area is known to be where street living and street working children come from. They currently work with 100 children giving them a meal every day and educational, psychological and spiritual support. This Church has benefited from training in childcare, health care and various other essential skills from Red Alert. A recent grant to build a bathroom facility is very important. This means that many parents also visit the project as the Church has made the bathroom available for their use; a very good alternative to the polluted lake. Needless to say 100 children without a bathroom facility would be a problem so this grant is vitally important and has allowed more children to be reached. This Church has ambitions to grow, working preventatively with children and offering skills and training to parents and healthcare too.

We visited project Agua Viva that was in a tin shed when Red Alert began in Oruro 4 years ago. Through local fund raising and grants from Toybox via Red Alert Agua Viva now has a permanent building where they work with over 100 children preventatively and reach locally abandoned or orphaned children. The area where Agua Viva is situated is slowly improving.

Approach to Agua Viva

When we visited a year ago it was in the middle of a massive building site and was surrounded by water. There have been some roads put in which means that we can get to the project on a reasonably hard surface but the area still resembles a building site. We had a great welcome from the children and were treated to them dancing and singing. Some of the children’s stories are hard to hear. There is an abandoned bus nearby where one little girl lives with her grandmother, following her parent’s disappearance from their house, leaving the grandmother and the little girl unable to afford to live elsewhere. This is one of many similar stories of children who live in this area.
















Maranatha Church has a project reaching many local children. Here there are an extremely committed group of volunteers working extremely hard. They have benefited from training and grants and this help has meant they have fund- raised locally as well as received grants from Red Alert which has resulted in a facility where they are now reaching many more children. Once they finish the present building work they plan to increase the numbers of children they work with again.

“Soy la Nina de tus Ojos” works with about 100 children. When Alastair visited three years ago they were reaching approximately 40 children. This project is run by a very enterprising man named Pastor Cleto. He is always keen to look at alternative interests for the children. This project grows vegetables and has ducks and chickens, all of which produce food for the children. When we visited we were given chicken for lunch cooked in a solar oven, potatoes grown at the project, that were cooked by hot stones buried in the ground, and salad also grown by the project. The children clearly benefit from a wide-ranging curriculum and besides these practical interests are given educational support, psychological support and spiritual support. The children here are at high risk and this support is invaluable preventative work. This is a great example of existing work which has benefited from Red Alert through training and grants. The project simply needed a little bit of help to do what they already do, do it better, and reach more children. The local people in Oruro know what is needed in their community, have the passion to serve their community and with a little bit of help achieve much, much more. For Toybox, a vision of a world with no street children, reached by this approach becomes possible and sustainable as the local community is engaged in this way.

“Arbor del Angel” works with prisoner’s children. This is another high-risk group needing care and support and is a project that is excellently run and has benefited from similar support working with 70 children.

We visited “Christo Resucitado” project which last year was working with 20 children who mainly lived or worked in the streets. They are now reaching over 40 children having benefited from training and grants.

We met a 15 year old who had lost a baby and is now pregnant again, has a sad, sad home life as her mother is an alcoholic and her father is not about. She is expected to care for younger siblings and has not attended school since she was 8 years old. This project is a lifeline for her and is saving her from long-term street life. There are many children like her … thank goodness Christo Resucitado is there and committed to these children.

Oruro is a bleak place and without Red Alert the projects would be reaching only a fraction of the children they are presently. It really is a privilege to see the dedicated Red Alert team in Oruro supporting local projects in a locally relevant way.

Alastair & Debbie