A Floor for the Kids!

We just recieved this picture of the finished floor - and the installed electricity. Exciting!!!!! Maybe we'll have the first family in this year!

Family Restoration Project Information

The Paredes family first introduced themselves to Global Gallery in the Short North in the year 2000. They had been traveling the country together (Felix & Flora – the parents, Richard & Nilda –their adult children, and Nilda’s daughter who was quite young at the time) selling alpaca sweaters and accessories and other handcrafts to Fair Trade stores. Felix and Flora had both begun as artisans and had been trading in the Andes among tourist shops and local communities for a long time. They felt they had been called, with the blessing of a US visa, to share this skill with a wider community, and began traveling to the States in the 1990s.

In 2004, Connie De Jong (Global Gallery’s current Executive Director) received several grants to do research in South America as part of graduate research at OSU. The 3 month trip ended with a visit with the Paredes in Cochabamba. After visiting several communities and hearing the stories of the community center efforts, we did an assessment of their community building initiatives. From that time, Nilda began to contribute her dream for a community project that would serve the needs of orphaned children from the area in and around Cochabamba. In 2005, Global Gallery donated $500 towards the development of architectural plans for the orphanage project.

In 2006, once the architectural plans were complete, Global Gallery donated $5000 towards the beginning of construction of the orphanage. The site of the orphanage was property that had been purchased by the Paredes family years prior and sits on a small hill in a community just outside Cochabamba. It is surrounded by tiny acreage of family farms and sits a half a mile between 2 public schools. There is a small strip of local stores several hundred feet from the site. Clearing of the land began in 2006 as plans for a Global Gallery delegation visit was planned. While our February trip plans were foiled by the government’s successful efforts to take control of Bolivia’s significant natural gas and oil resources (previously controlled by international governments and companies), we managed to reschedule in April and the foundation for the first building was complete. As the first story walls were completed, our small delegation of 4 helped fill the dugout floor with rocks from the property. We met Ernesto who was committed to directing the efforts of the orphanage and learned of the direction the plans had taken.

At the same time, the family was working on formalizing handcrafts marketing and community project development through the creation of a Foundation. In 2007, the Bolivian government approved the application for Foundation status and IFAT (International Fair Trade Association) acceptance followed close behind. The second story of the first building on the orphanage site has been completed, along with a rock wall that circumvents and protects the property. Global Gallery donated $1000 from countertop collections to the project in late 2007 and delivered an additional $3000 on our 2008 visit. Global Gallery currently can accept donations in any amount towards the project. As a non-profit organization, Global Gallery is able to offer individuals and corporations a letter showing that donations are tax-deductible according to U.S. law.

Ernesto and his wife, the project directors in Bolivia, have worked with orphaned children their entire lives, even though their own financial resources are extremely limited. Ernesto introduced us to one of the children he helped raise, a young man who lost both his parents to cholera, who was working on the construction of the first orphanage building, and earning day laborer wages to save for classes he intended to begin soon. Ernesto worked carefully with the Foundation to develop a plan for the orphanage that is culturally relevant. The concept of the orphanage is to be a Family Restoration Center. The Foundation will work with the Bolivian federal social services agency to identify the children most desperately needing placement, as well as screening orphaned children from artisan partner communities through this system. Each home (there will be 4 home buildings, each with 2 stories, for a total of 8 family units) will house a parental unit along with 8-10 children of a variety of ages. Each home has 2 bathrooms, a master bedroom (for infants and parents), and a girls room and a boys room, as well as a common living space. The center will house 80 children at capacity. Children will attend the local public school, in walking distance from the center.

The Center will also include a communal cooking area so that cooking responsibilities can be shared among. The final building will be a strip of workshops, including a leather working workshop, a carpentry for the furniture needs of the center, a bakery (to sell bread in the neighborhood as well as provide for the center). Some parents will be employed in the workshops in order to earn their livelihood as well as to provide job training and important mentorship opportunities for the children and youth of the center. Children will not be placed in an adoption cycle or be removed to external agencies, in order to avoid disruption of growth, as well as to avoid possible criticism since the project has international support.