Saturday I went with the Rotaracters I had met on Thursday to an activity in Olmué, about 40 minutes north of the Viña/Valparaíso area. We went to a boarding house for special needs children called Hogar Los Sauces.
The home receives minimal funding from a government subsidy for youth.
We played with the children, danced, and distributed small snack packages with juice and other goodies. The packages were bought with an allowance given to Rotaract by their sponsor club. Due to the disabilities of many of the children, it was hard to play organized games with them. Most of the children are considered con riesgo social, or “social risk” children, meaning they were either abandoned or were taken from their families because of abuse or related reasons.
More pictures from this event may be found here.
One of the short videos I took at the event may be found here.
A video of the drive to Olmué can be found here.
At least for me, it has been almost 2 years since I last had the opportunity to work with special need children. Aside from being eye-opening I reflected on the type of impact I want to make on this area during my time here.
After leaving the hogar we went to a country house owned by the parents of one of the members, Mauricio.
This little guy lovvveedd being picked up!
Who knew there were Tiger fans in Chile?
Two girls from Valparaíso Rotaract’s sister club in Peru were visiting for the event. They were from the Lima area Rotaract Club of Monterrico Surco in District 4450.
Also a Rotaractor named José from the Rotaract Club of Azapa in Arica, Chile came for the event. The Azapa club is also in District 4320.
We spent some time near the pool and barbecued in the back yard of the house. Diego, who studies Multi-Media, was the resident DJ. The girls from Perú spoke and also gave everyone a pin so that we can show off our clubs sisterhood. The vice president of the Valparaíso club spoke, and I also said a few words.
Barbecue time–with coal instead of charcoal.
The Rotaract Club in Valparaíso meets on Fridays, I can’t wait to start attending meetings and become an active member of the club.
Posted on 03/09/2008
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