Sponsor's update from Coyanco, Chile

Child sponsorship update from the SOS Children's Village Coyanco, Chile from December 2007

Dear sponsors and friends,

In a few more weeks the year 2007 will come to its end and as usual, we want to tell you what has happened at our Coyanco SOS Village during the year.

It was a quiet year without great changes. At present there live 108 children and youngsters at our Village, aged from 2 to 19 years. At the youth facility in Concepción there lives Angélica, a young lady who is successfully finishing her studies as a medical technician and is already doing her professional training period. Jordan also lives in the youth facility, still attending high school and has to go for 2 more years. Later he wants to carry out a training too.

During this year 5 more children arrived and were received with much love and heartiness. They accustomed very well to their new lives at our Village. Just the same, they needed some time to adapt, they had to learn how to respect certain rules of living together, the hours to get up in the morning, for eating, for studying etc. The same number of children - 5 in all - left us, because they could return to their biological families.

Our SOS mothers constantly get training at our school for mothers, as well as at external courses and workshops. Four of them proudly received their university diplomas, for having participated in courses during several months. In spite of the hard work it means to take care for such a big a family of 8 or 9 children, SOS mothers do all they can for learning more, in order to be able to look after their children and to educate them better, how to understand their difficulties and help them to solve their problems.

The children went on with their numerous activities, but they really don't have much spare time during the week, because almost all of them attend school the whole day long. Most children go to schools at the town of Quillón and can have lunch at home and then go back to school again in the afternoon - always on the run. Some attend schools at the little town of Bulnes. They have to take along their lunch. The older ones attend high schools at the city of Chillán, taking a bus ride of 40 kms.

We celebrated all the important holidays, among them the International Day of SOS Villages in June and the National Holidays in September. The whole community joined in the typical meals, games and dances. Our children love these holidays. For a few years they now have also been celebrating Halloween and they dress for the occasion with surprising imagination.

Every birthday also is quite an event. It is celebrated with the whole family and members of the biological family also are invited, if it is possible. Many of them live far out in the countryside and have a big difficulty in coming to the Village - but it is important that the children keep this contact and they are happy to have them visiting and say that they have "two families".

Preparing children for the future

This year during winter, in August, the children enjoyed a special event they had never seen before - it snowed heavily in their Village and the snow stayed for longer than a day. They played, built snow men and could not believe this phenomenon. It had not occurred before, at least for the last 50 years.

We are very proud of 2 of our young ladies from the Village who now work as SOS mothers, after having passed all the exams. María is a SOS mother in the Curicó Village and Karen an "aunt" at the Ancud Village on Chiloé island. Our older youngsters study in Chillán, María Fernanda who wants to be a nurse assistant, Marco and Andrea are progressing in their professional education to become automobile mechanics.

We are happy that we have won the financing for 2 projects from the municipality. One is a drawing workshop for 20 children, to be carried out at the Village by an art teacher, the other is a donation of musical instruments and the assistance of a teacher for folklore dancing, for the ones who are interested in participating. Now in December, the school term will come to its end. Most of our children attend elementary schools or nursery schools, only 6 are at high school. But 12 children now finish elementary school and will attend high school next year.

Summer has arrived and we prepare for Christmas. This must sound strange to you who live in the Northern Hemisphere. But we are used to celebrate this beautiful holiday with sun and heat. We have our nicely decorated Christmas trees just the same, even though they are artificial ones, and a crib in every house and the children wait for their presents on the 24 the with great joy.

We thank you with all our hearts for your valuable help for all the children and youngsters of our Coyanco Village and wish you a Merry Christmas and all the very best for the year 2008.

Cordially,

Julio Arancibia
Director Coyanco SOS Village.