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Our "Red
& White Benefit Party" was a great success!!
August 25th, 2008: A quick message to let you
know that our "Red & White Benefit Party" held at Tavern
on the Green in New York some 10 days ago was a great
success!! More than 400 tickets were sold and some
250/300 people showed up despite the rain on that
Thursday evening.
We had a lot of fun and people were still dancing
until late at night. We held the raffles and the winners
have been contacted. The event page on Facebook has all
the details.
More than USD 9,000 (nine thousand dollars) were raised
on that evening, which is more than we expected. Several
websites reported the event and we managed to "raise the
awareness" about our Foundation and its projects.
I want to give a big special thanks for their great work
in organizing the event to Pilar Trelles, Melanie
Morris, Adriana Valenzuela, Carmen Bedoya and Kary
Orlandini as well as Clio Rubinos, Sabrina Barthmann and
Camila Rizo-Patron. They worked a lot for several weeks
to make sure that the party would be a success. They are
a great team and we are proud of their support!
I also want to thank all of you that did buy tickets
even knowing that you could not make it to the party but
who wanted to help out to make sure it would be a
success.
We have been sending tax certificate to all the people
we know that spent USD 100 or more in tickets. If you
have not received yours, please let us know and we will
immediately issue one.
We are now obviously thinking of our next party... We
will come back to you later on this fall with news. In
the meantime, if you have any suggestions, ideas or are
interested in sponsoring opportunities, please let us
know.
Many thanks for your support!
3rd
Newsletter 2008 - MMFC Trujillo & Cuzco to operate
children with cleft lips:
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May 21st, 2008: I came back from Peru last
week where I spent a week with the two MMFC ("Medical
Missions For Children") missions to Trujillo and Cuzco.
It was an amazing experience. I spent the first half of
the week in Trujillo before joining the other team in
Cuzco.
The Trujillo mission ended successfully for what was a
first mission in this city: more than 30 children were
operated and more than 40 procedures were performed.
Many cleft lips, no palates (no palates are done on a
first mission as it is a more complicated surgery), and
a lot of dental work. Many young children, some babies,
some teenagers, one adult (55 years old with a cleft
lip...). Very good relationships were started with the
local sponsor, the Rotary Club. They will help us
finding cases for the next mission and they will
facilitate the relations with the local hospital.
Then I went to Cuzco to join the mission that the
"Children of Peru Foundation" is sponsoring for the
second year in a row. This year has been extremely
successful: more than 60 children were operated and more
than 75 procedures were performed in the week. Many
first time cleft lips, a lot of palates (from cleft lips
done last year) and 4 microtias were performed (microtia
is a 3 hours long surgery done to build a missing ear)
and a lot of dental work as well. Many babies, some
teenagers, two adults. Most interesting was the quantity
of "first cases": it means a very good screening and
preparation work was done prior to the arrival of the
team. It also means more work guaranteed for next year
as a lot of cases will need a second operation (palates
for example that comes after the cleft lip repair and
the follow-up on the microtias).
Everything went well, but two nurses got serious
altitude sickness (remember Cuzco sits at more than
11,000 feet...) and had to be repatriated to Lima and
then the US. They are fine now, but the rest of the team
had to work more so that all the kids could get their
surgery. Everybody was at the hospital by 6:30AM and not
back at the hotel before 7PM. A very dedicated team that
deserves an applause.
There is no doubt in my mind that the money we spent
sponsoring this fine medical team is more than well
spent. Every life touched by these 2 missions has been
clearly changed forever. Unfortunately there are a lot a
cleft lips cases in Peru, and children do not get
surgery simply because their families cannot afford it.
With your donation, we can sponsor these missions that
are clearly making a huge difference.
Last year we sponsored the Cuzco mission and we did it
as well this year. Our objective for next year will be
to raise enough money to sponsor the two missions,
Trujillo that will grow and Cuzco that is now becoming
an important event.
In this trip to Peru, I also spent time in Huaycan with
our friends of "Samusocial Peru" and had very
interesting meetings. I will be sending a special email
in a few days. French Prime Minister Mr Fillon was there
as well last Friday as he was replacing French President
Mr Sarkozy at the 5th "Latin America-Carribean &
European Union" summit. Between meetings with Presidents
Alan Garcia, Hugo Chavez and others, he took the time to
go to Huaycan and visit our "Samusocial Peru" friends
and their center!!
Next September New York fundraising event: We are
working on an event that should take place early
September 2008. It will be a 4 to 5 days contemporary
peruvian art exhibition that will be inaugurated with a
cocktail evening. We already have a curator as well as
almost ten artists already. More news soon, but you can
already check here for more info.
Advisory Council: I am very pleased to let you
know that two fine young peruvians accepted to join our
Advisory Council so that they will be able to help us
more and participate in the growth of our project.
Rodrigo Franco, who is just getting his MBA at
Stanford, helped us a lot with a big case study he did
on the "Children of Peru Foundation" at Stanford. He
also just finished a very successful round of
fundraising for us with Californians who love Peru!!
Maria del Pilar Trelles is a young peruvian
Medical Doctor who was with the Cuzco MMFC mission as a
volunteer. She is preparing a report about the whole
experience (soon on the website...). She is also helping
with the organization of our next September event in New
York.
990 tax form: We recently filled our 990 tax
report with the IRS. Soon on the website (that is when
we'll learn how to upload a PDF file...). In the
meantime, anyone interested, just answer this email and
we will email the 990 form back to you.
Children of Peru Foundation - Visite de Francois Fillon
au Perou:
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May 21st, 2008: Un message rapide pour nos
amis Francais et francophones a l'occasion du voyage au
Perou de Mr Francois Fillon qui assistait la semaine
derniere, en remplacement de Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, au Veme
"Sommet Union europeenne-Amerique Latine et Caraibes" a
Lima.
Mr Fillon a trouve le temps entre ses differents
entretiens avec les presidents peruvien Alan Garcia,
venezuelien Hugo Chavez, colombien Alvaro Uribe et
autres reunions importantes d'aller visiter le centre de
nos amis du "Samusocial Peru" a Huaycan.
Ci-dessous quelques liens web relatant son sejour ainsi
que la visite au "Samusocial Peru" de Huaycan:
http://fr.reuters.com/article/topNews/idFRCHE67132920080516
http://www.france24.com/fr/20080516-fillon-veut-profiter-dun-sommet-international-sensibiliser-cas-betancourt?pop=TRUE
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i1R19dc9vLHc2cOxaWLzmRN3RQwg
En vous rendant sur le website de TF1, allez sur les "journeaux
televises", et regardez celui du samedi 17 mai 13 heures.
Apres un sujet sur Segolene Royal, vous pourrez suivre
un reportage de quelques minutes sur la visite au "Samusocial
Peru".
En vous remerciant pour votre aide
2nd
Newsletter 2008 - Inauguration of the school in Huaycan,
near Lima:
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March 10th, 2008: Last year we decided to go
ahead with a project to finance the construction of a
new building for a school (primary and secondary) in
Huaycan, near Lima. The execution of the project was in
the hands of our partners, "Samusocial Peru". We sent
the money (USD 8,000) in December 2007 and works started
immediately. We are very proud to announce that last
week the building was officially inaugurated and ready
for the new scholar year that started this week!!
A special thanks goes to Christopher Kim from the
Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusets and to all the
children from the CM2C class of the Lycee Francais de
New York and their teacher, Mylene Ardid who raised
funds specially for this project.
If you would like to do something similar and get
involved, check out our "be a fundraiser" page and do
not hesitate to contact us.
Finally, news from our 2008 fundraising campaign: Things
are going well, we received so far more than USD 15,000.
Many thanks to all of you who donated again this year.
For those of you who did not do so yet but are thinking
of doing it, please consider doing it now, as this year
we will need money sooner rather than later as the MMFC
mission to Cuzco to operate kids with cleft lips that we
are planning to sponsor will take place in May.
To donate online with your credit card, go to our
donations page.
To subscribe to our newsletter
1rst
Newsletter 2008 - Call for
donations:
To subscribe to our newsletter
February 8th, 2008:
2007 was a great year for the Children of Peru
Foundation, thanks to all of you. We reached our
objective of fundraising with more than USD 60,000
raised!! USD 50,000 directly for our projects and USD
10,000 to join in the August earthquake relief effort.
With the money raised, we continued to help "Samusocial
Peru": we funded all running costs for the ambulance we
bought in 2006, we continued our support to the
tuberculosis campaign in Huaycan, and we financed the
construction of a new building for a school (in Huaycan)
with 3 new classrooms for the children. With the money
raised for the earthquake relief, we worked with "Samusocial
Peru" who, in conjunction with "Pompiers Sans Frontieres",
immediately sent a team to Pisco to participate in the
recovery effort. Food and water was also bought and sent
to some people in need. The team also helped to deploy
water purification machines that France sent to help
out. In 2007 we also started to help a second
organization: "MMFC" (Medical Mission For Children), a
group of surgeons and pediatricians who travel to poor
countries to operate for free children with cleft lips
and palates. We financed their November 2007 mission to
Cuzco, where more than 50 children received free
surgeries that changed their lives forever.
For 2008, we want to continue all this good work, and we
want to increase it. Our objective will be to double our
fundraising: We want to raise between USD 100,000 and
USD 120,000. We plan to use the money to help out the
same organizations. We will continue to support the
existing programs with "Samusocial Peru" and we will
expand this support towards new projects in Huaycan.
With "MMFC", we want to go along their increased
commitment to Peru; they decided to launch a second
mission to Peru: they will go to Trujillo, a city in the
north, on the Pacific coast. Our idea is to fund the
Cuzco mission in 2008 as we did in 2007, and to help out
for the Trujillo mission as well. And finally, we are
currently working to select a third organization that we
could start helping. We are looking at the education
sector.
To continue our efforts, we need your donations. All
this good work can only be done if you continue to help
us with your donations. We need you to renew your last
year donation and we need to reach out more people. Some
of you already told us that you were going to increase
your 2008 commitment to match our growing needs. If you
cannot, there is one thing you can do to help us grow:
reach out to other people. If you like what we do,
please forward this mail to friends and family who you
think might be interested or, even better, you can speak
with them. We will also be pleased to speak to anybody
you will introduce us to, so that we can explain
directly what we do and how we do it.
Last thing: MMFC has planned their two missions (Cuzco
and Trujillo) for the beginning of May. This is pretty
soon and it means we have less time than last year to
raise the money (another challenge!!). If you plan to
continue helping us out this year, please bear this in
mind: we will need the help now. Go to our
donations page where you
will find all the details to mail us a check or use your
credit card to donate online through Paypal. If you plan
to help us out this year but prefer to do it at a later
time in the year, please let us know, so that we can
factor that in.
If you have any questions regarding our projects or the
donations process, please do not hesitate to contact us
by answering this email. We appreciate your feed-back
very much!!
To subscribe to our newsletter
CHILDREN of PERU FOUNDATION in the NEWS:
UNITED NATIONS OCHA
List of countries and NGOs who are helping Peru
September 18th, 2007 -
A quick message to let you know that we have been
listed on a United Nations (UN) website. The "UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs" (OCHA)
runs the
Reliefweb website. This site provides a lot of
information on humanitarian emergencies and natural
disasters as well as information on the aid provided by
different countries and NGOs.
There is very interesting information on the Peru
earthquake as well as maps, and you will also find the
Children of Peru Foundation listed as one of the donors
for the relief and reconstruction effort. We are at the
letter "C", on the second page of the document.
To see the webpage with the list, click
here.
PERU
EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL SITUATION:
USD 10,000
REACHED FOR THE EARTHQUAKE RELIEF EFFORT!!!
August 23rd, 2007 - Your donations are making a
difference! A quick message to let you know that we have
reached the USD 10,000.00 in donations for our
"earthquake relief" effort! This is a great result and
we are all very proud.
You might want to check the following links to two
websites from "Pompiers Sans Frontieres" where you will
find additional information on the relief effort that we
have been supporting. The Children of Peru Foundation is
named on both sites, so I thought you could be
interested.
Pompiers sans Frontieres Peru
Pompiers sans Frontieres France
Thanks a lot!
PERU
EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL SITUATION:
YOUR HELP IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE -
DONATE
NOW
August 21st, 2007 - Your donations are making a
difference! Since we asked for your help, we raised more
than 8 thousand dollars. Thanks to your fast answers to
our call we managed to have a team in the affected area
less than 24 hours after the earthquake hit Peru. This
team has been doing a lot of work during its 4 days of
presence. Full activity report
here.
Now it's time for the reconstruction effort. I am very
pleased to announce you that
SamusocialPeru and
Pompiers sans Frontieres Peru (PSF) will help
the French officials to coordinate and organize part of
the French aid so that the aid is used in the best
possible way.
A new mission will leave tomorrow. They will join the
French firemen and doctors already working near Pisco.
We are still taking "earthquake relief" donations
because we want to support
SamusocialPeru and
PSF
in their new mission and because we want to participate
in the reconstruction process. Our funds could be spent
on prefab homes for example, or on water purification
systems. We also saw that a lot of the aid is
concentrated on Pisco/Chincha/Ica (the main cities) and
that several villages in the area are left alone (see
the report of activity
here). We
will concentrate our aid on these left alone places.
So far we have raised 8 thousand dollars. How much more
can we raise? One of you told me that we could reach 20
thousand dollars or more... Can we do it?
We will see.
But the important thing is: the more money we can
raise, the more aid we can bring.
How can you help?
If you have not donated yet, please consider doing so.
There is no minimum or any suggested amount. Every
amount helps, however small.
You can
Donate
right now very easily with your credit card. Or you can
mail us a check.
I remind you that we have the US tax exempt "501c3"
status. Also, remember that our costs are kept to a
minimum as they are taken care of by our Board members.
It means that 100% of your donations go directly to the
projects we support and, in this case, to the earthquake
relief actions that we are undertaking with our local
associates.
If you have already donated and are wondering how you
can help more, please consider forwarding this email to
your friends and family with a personal note explaining
that you care.
A few donors have been doing this already and the
results are better than expected. I guess that people do
react when a friend or a parent calls for their help.
Many thanks
PERU
EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL SITUATION:
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED -
DONATE
NOW
August 16th,
2007 -
Peru was hit yesterday at 6:41 PM by a powerful
magnitude 8 earthquake that was centered off Peru's
Pacific coast near the city of Ica, some 90 miles south
of Lima.
This afternoon the official number of fatalities was put
by a UN official above 450 and rising. Thousands are
wounded. And a lot more are left homeless.
We were contacted early this morning by our friend
Sandra from the
SamusocialPeru. She was asking for help. For
YOUR help.
After the quake, she reached out with her friends at "Pompiers
Sans Frontieres" (Firemen Without Borders), a
peruvian-french NGO specialized in emergency help.
SamusocialPeru and "Pompiers Sans Frontieres"
have been working together in Huaycan for almost 2 years
now, doing work educating the people of Huaycan in areas
like basic hygiene, basic emergency treatment, etc...
They decided to immediately send a group of four
volunteers to Ica/Pisco: Three volunteers from "Pompiers
Sans Frontieres" and one from
SamusocialPeru. All four are trained for special
emergency cases like earthquakes or other natural
disasters.
They left this morning in Sandra's car with all their
equipment, with medicines and first aid kits. They bring
ropes and other equipment to work in disasters areas to
try to recover survivors under the debris.
The idea is to reach the area as soon as possible (the
earthquake did a lot of damages to the roads and it
seems very difficult to get there) in order to bring as
much relief as possible. The first days and the first
hours are the most important. People can survive only a
certain time under the debris.
Sandra needs money to fund this mission. She evaluated
the need at USD 3,000.00 to start.
We immediately
told her that the Children of Peru Foundation
would support her effort 100% and we wired the USD
3,000.00 in the afternoon.
We need to fund this effort and that is how you can
help. These people are going to save lives and you can
help them do exactly that. If you want to participate,
please send us immediately a special donation to fund
the earthquake relief effort done by
SamusocialPeru and the specialists of "Pompiers
Sans Frontieres". You can do so with your credit card
right now on our
donation
page (mention "earthquake relief") or you can mail us a
check. If you do mail us a check, please send us a quick
email so that we know money is coming.
This will be a special donation exclusively dedicated to
the relief effort and will not be used for our current
projects.
As always in those cases, time is of the essence, so if
you are thinking of making a special donation, please do
it now.
The need is for the USD 3,000.00 that we already sent
but I am sure that the reports are going to come fast
with more fatalities, more wounded in need of immediate
help and more homeless people in need. The more money we
can send them, the more relief they will be able to
bring.
More news tomorrow.
5th Newsletter - Our projects
for 2007:
March 30th, 2007
-
We have two main
projects this year. The first one will be to continue
our support of the great work that
Samusocial Peru is doing in Huaycan near Lima (USD
9,000)
The second one will be with
Medical Mission For Children (MMFC),
a US based 501c3 charity: we will be the sole sponsor of
their next mission to Peru (USD 31,000)
Read more
about these two projects....
We will need to raise USD
40,000 if we want to make these projects realities.
To donate now, click here
To subscribe to our newsletter
4th Newsletter - Status on our 2
projects:
March 18th, 2007
- Since our last newsletter we have been pretty
active launching the projects and basically putting the
money to work! This newsletter is about letting you know
what is the status regarding the ambulance (bought in
December 20006) and the Tuberculosis project in Huaycan
(started in January 2007) ...
To subscribe to our newsletter
Third Newsletter issued:
We reached our first fundraising goal!
November
28th, 2006 - We are extremely happy and proud to
announce today that we reached our fundraising goal!
This is great news for us.
With the last funds received we reached our target
amount of USD 22,000.00 and donations are still
coming... Our objective was to reach our goal before
year-end, but we got there before the end of November!
Thanks to your generosity.
September 18th, 2006 - We received today the letter
from the IRS dated September 13th, 2006 whereby the IRS
has "determined that the Children of Peru Foundation
is exempt from Federal income tax under section 501 (c)
(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to the
Children of Peru Foundation are deductible under
section 170 of the Code."
The Effective Date of Exemption is February 3, 2006
which is the date of our incorporation. This means that
all donations already made are tax deductible.
Second Newsletter issued:
September 9th, 2006 - This summer has proved more
active than we thought as we recently reached another
milestone in our effort to raise money for our projects:
We have reached the USD 12,000.00 (twelve thousands)
mark in donations and pledges. That is exactly
50% of our target of USD 24,000.00 Thanks a lot to
everybody!
To subscribe to our newsletter
First issue of our Newsletter is launched:
June 10th, 2006 - We
just launched our first issue of our Newsletter with the
news that our fundraising effort just reached the USD
8,000.00 mark. We consider this a milestone because this
basically guarantees that one of our two projects will
effectively go ahead. The tuberculosis project has a
cost of USD 7,000.00 and is now completely financed
through donations and pledges received so far. Thanks a
lot!
To subscribe to our newsletter
Children of Peru Foundation selects its first two
projects:
April 23, 2006 - We have now started the fund-raising for
our first two grants! Both will go to the Samusocial Peru
for two very specific programs. Both will be based
in Huaycan, one of the very poor neighborhoods
surrounding the capital city of Lima.
The first grant will go to fund a one year program structured
by the Samusocial Peru to help children fight against
Tuberculosis in Huaycan.
The second grant will finance the acquisition by
the Samusocial Peru
of their second "mobile unit" (ambulance).
Read more....
The Children of Peru Foundation is Born...
March 24,
2006 -
Children of Peru Foundation is a not-for-profit
organization, incorporated by the State of New York on February 3rd,
2006, committed to building a better future for poor children in Peru.
We want to help make a difference when it comes to their health
and their education.
We will be actively raising funds in the US to offer grants to a select
group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Peru that
provide
better healthcare and education for poor children in Peru.
All our grants will be tied to a very specific project.
We are starting with Samusocial Peru with whom we are working
on a series of programs to help make a difference for the poor
children of Huaycan, one of the very poor
neighborhoods surrounding the capital city of Lima.
We are actively working to identify other NGOs in Peru,
with the help of our Advisory Council, so that we can offer
additional grants.
We are currently filing for 501(c)3 tax-exempt status with the IRS.
We will soon organize an inauguration event in New York.
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