update: los quinchos children’s project, la chureca

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Wales NSC’s David McKnight visited the Los Quinchos project on La Chureca (Managua’s colossal municipal rubbish dump) last week. You can see David’s photographs of the children from the project in the slideshow above.

David visited the project with Cardiff sisters, Kate Saunders and Maggie Barclay (and Maggie’s son Rob Thorburn of ‘Performers without Borders’). As many readers will be aware, we have been supporting the project for the past 4 years, raising over £25,000 to pay the salaries of the support staff who work with the children who live and work on the dump. Maggie and Kate have fundraised a large chunk of this, inlcuding monies from the royalties of Maggie’s books, two of which are about La Chureca.  See our post  from last year.

The Spanish government-funded initiative to clear the dump and create a recycling centre and new houses for the residents, trundles along slowly. Of the 220 houses promised, 50 have been completed and are occupied by former residents of the dump. However, upto 70 children a day continue to attend the Los Quinchos centre and it remains unclear as to when the centre will have to close. Carlos Vidal, a child psychologist and Director of the Los Quinchos project told David that he expects that the centre on La Chureca will remain open for another year. This means that we will have to consider whether we can continue to raise funds (currently we need to raise £450 a month). You can donate online here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/walesnicaragua

Thanks again for all your support over the past four years.

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