What is happening in my project?

What have we done for the past two weeks? 

For the past two weeks Geyra and I have organized Dress Down Days, made empanadas and are hosting a Movie Night with Kenya and Isabel’s CAS project, to fundraise money for our community. We have made a bank account to keep money safe and this will be a method to receive donations from people who want to help. This week a family near to where I live lost their home. The house burnt down and honestly the material of their houses were not in good conditions, this made the fire spread all over the houses. These two families lost everything. Gladly the community in Huacas is helping them to build new houses, Geyra and I realized that this situation will be a long term recovery so we decided to collaborate. I have spoken to one of the families affected, her name is Dayana, she is about 27 years old and she is a single mother without parental support. Both Geyra and I want to help her with basic things so that she can support herself and her son as well. In defining this big problem, we noticed that losing everything affected their education. There are two girls who are studying, Geyra and I will be donating school supplies for these girls so that they do not lose the opportunity to continue studying. We have in mind to offer tutoring to the children. 

What are the next steps for the upcoming 2 weeks?

Step 1: Invest in bake sales and have the movie night event on Feb 5. 

Step 2: Visit the family 

Step 3: Take videos and picture for our video 

Step 4: Ask Dayana what she really needs for her child. 

Step 5: Take video whenever we Interview the little girls (how are they feeling?, what is their opinion on the situation?, what are they doing to keep track of their homeworks?…) 

Step 6: With the money we fundraised from the empanadas, dress down days and even the movie night we will buy the materials for Dayana’s family and the school materials for the girls. 

Step 7: Edit our video and turn it into a wonderment. 

How have you grown and changed through the process of these actions?

During this process I have realized many things. Besides that I consider myself a very empathetic person and I have always liked to help people. An act of generosity can really change the way I look at my life. From the beginning my goal of a CAS project is to be able to make people understand that there are things much more important than money, like gratitude or being able to have a place to live, a place to eat, a place to sleep. Yes, money benefits in every possible way, but there are people who have so much and are not happy. And the people who don’t have so much and are the happiest, because they are grateful for what they have. Just being able to do something simple and small for someone can change the course of their life. That’s why we decided to do something for our community. 

It is very devastating to be left with absolutely nothing. Even struggling in deciding how to provide for a family. Not being able to provide food or a necessary day by day supply for a family is a very difficult process. These families have received so much support from the community and we want to be part of that change. It’s important to me in fact it’s part of my routine to be able to make someone smile or show an act of generosity, I do it a lot with my peers and every day I get up even if it’s not the best day of my life I make it the best day for someone else. Through our help I know that these families will be grateful and we will be part of a change. We may even inspire someone else to do the same.