Chile 2008 a Great Success!
Members of the Swan City Rotary Club and their spouses traveled to Chile to put the finishing touches on two projects. They also took some time to follow up on past projects in the same region of Chile. The new projects took place in central Chile and were in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Lota and the Rotary Club of Arauco.
Rotarians Dan Drake and Miguel Lopez present a cheque for $5,000(CDN) to the Centro De Educacion Integrada De Adultos school in Lota, Chile. The money was used to purchase books and equipment in a library for a vocational school in Lota. Lota is a town in which 50% of the population lives below poverty level due to the shutdown of the nearby coal mine. The Rotary Club of Lota is working on ways to revive the town. They believe that education is the answer. The school was set up to provide youth with the skills to survive in the workforce by the time they reach the age of majority. They face the difficulty of keeping youth in schools in order to offer them a better future. Families are tempted to force children into the workforce at an early age to help provide for living costs. The school offers an alternative to conventional schooling.
The Swan City Rotary Club helped fund a boiler system in a geriatric care centre operated by the Las Rosas Foundation in Arauco, Chile. This care centre is home to 80 seniors who are in need of a care facility and either suffer from financial difficulty or have no family to support them. The facility is staffed by a few nuns and many volunteers. With the help of a grant from the Wild Rose Foundation of Alberta, Swan City Rotary was able to contribute over $50,000 in total towards this project. Many other agencies participated in funding and in-kind donations to the project including the Rotary Club of Arauco.
The heating system was installed 4 years after the building was finished. Volunteers, staff and seniors suffered through many cold winters before the boiler system was installed. Prior to this upgrade, the entire complex was heated by three wood and kerosene stoves. Thanks to Rotary, the building is kept warm throughout the winter. This particular unit is capable of providing enough heat for a building twice the size of their care centre. Their plan is to expand in the near future.