Chance for Growth

Essen, December 2010
Year number two comes to an end, and we want to express again our great thanks for everything that was achieved with your help in 2010. We can be very happy with our missions, the increasing number of sponsored school children as well as with the large community of friends, supporters and donors.

Chance for growth wishes everyone, especially the people in our project regions, a Merry Christmas and the best for the New Year in 2011!

Isla Verde, November 2010
In autumn of 2010 the roof of the San Agustin High School on Isla Verde was repaired with money from chance for growth, Inc. Due to many heavy storms over the years this repair has become urgently necessary. Furthermore, toilet stall doors, which (for us this was unbelievable) have not been there before, were purchased and inserted. All in all, the renovation cost totalled 648 Euro.br>
Isla Verde, October 2010
During 2010 the number of sponsored school children in Isla Verde was increased from 19 (in 2009) to 44, all in cooperation with the Allouette Foundation. Fifteen of the forty-four sponsored children are promoted directly by voluntary godparents in Germany. The remaining twenty-nine children are supported from other donation income of the association. For chance for growth this implies total costs of 5,220 Euro per year for school sponsoring on Isla Verde. The first children have recently received their school marks. All school children have luckily advanced into the next class, a large percentage of them with honours. The cooperation with Lori, our new social worker in the Philippines already pays off after a short time. With Lori’s assistance, the quality of the supervision of our school children has improved as well as the speed with which information from the Isla Verde reaches Germany.

India, September 2010
With some of the donations received when celebrating chance for growth’s "first birthday" it was possible to extend the number of sponsored villages in South-India from two villages (in 2009) to four villages, again in cooperation with the FTS organisation. Thus, the number of supported people by chance for growth has increased to 874. For the sponsored people we provide free medical care, drugs, as well as free education for all of the supported village’s children. Besides, chance for growth sponsored two, one day medical camps during which a total of 827 patients (331 of them children) were taken care of, for not more than 1 Euro per patient. As India still faces an exceptionally high incidence of child blindness and age-related blindness, chance for growth provided an additional free eye-check-up for all of the 827 patients.

Essen, Mai 2010 - We become one.
On May 15, 2010 we took the opportunity, with the first birthday of the official existence of chance for growth inc., to thank the many donators and supporters for their valuable assistance. In the rooms of the gilbert & gilbert printing company, which were made available to us free of charge, approximately 130 friends and sponsors of chance for growth inc. gathered, including many children. Augmenting an international buffet, there was a presentation about our work, live music from the band UnPaddelugged as well as a diverse children’s programme. All in all we raised 1,435 Euros that day, in addition to welcoming new members and new school children sponsors. Special thanks again to:

gilbert&gilbert Druckerei, Essen
Unpaddelugged on myspace

Philippines March 2010
Lorenzana Orozco Arieta finished her secondary education at the Macalaya National High School. Since finishing secondary education, her strong determination to earn a degree encouraged her to continue her studies at college. She enrolled at Bicol University, one of the state universities in the Philippines with low tuition fee but high quality education. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Social Work and graduated in March 2009. She was awarded as an Academic Scholar and Outstanding Student in academics. In June 2009 , she passed the Licensure Examination for Social Worker given by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). Presently, she is the Social Worker In-Charge and Project Coordinator of Alouette Foundation of the Philippines, Inc. handling the Quezon Province and the Batangas areas of operation. Her daily experiences help us to realize the real essence of being a social worker. For her, there’s a big difference in putting into practice the principles that she gained during her university studies. It is also very important to have a heart for the profession that we have chosen. Moreover, the knowledge base of social work guides her in daily undertakings, especially its philosophy wherein it is stated: “Every person has an inherent worth and dignity and if given a chance has the potential to develop to the fullest of what he/she is capable of.”
Lori believes “poverty is not a hindrance to success.”

Essen, February 2010
Again this year our friend Sabine proved one can make an impressive and valuable contribution to our work. On the Mülheimer Christmas bazaar "Christmas Hides" Sabine offered self-produced “biscuits for education”. Beside roasted almonds of various tastes and biscuits for dogs, the hand-knitted egg cosies were an absolute eye- catcher. We owe Sabine and her family many thanks for the creative and time- consuming initiative. We are grateful for the donation of nearly 400 Euros to our work.

Essen, October 2009
Parma. Ketsana. Mirinae.- three names that sound rather harmless. They are the three most devastating tornadoes which struck the Philippines lately and which- due to severe flooding- have left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and in desperate straits. Some people are still missing and it is feared that there will be several thousand casualties.
While the TV-crews had already turned their attention to other regions of the world, we were unable to retrieve any information as to the situation in the regions in which we carry out our projects for a rather long time. Until last week communicating with Isla Verde was impossible. Jacynthe and Sven could only find out that the damage caused by the tornadoes was comparably small on Isla Verde and that most of the reconstruction can be carried out by the local population with the resources they have at their disposal. However, one of the relief organizations of our partner Allouette was more severely hit. The latest photos show an almost entirely destroyed school building. In a meeting with the chairman of Allouette we handed over an initial donation of 10,000 Pesos (€ 150). This money will be used to purchase new school books, which are needed to begin regular schooling soon.

Social Worker on Isla Verde
A qualified social worker, Miss Lori Orozco Arieta, worker from the Philippines has agreed to work for Chance for Growth. He will visit Isla Verde in Mid-November with Lucy Abanico and Bernard Pierquin in order to aquaint himself with the families he will be supervising. He will be calling on the sponsored children, the teachers and parents on a regular basis. It will be his goal to direct and assess the sponsorship-programme and document the progress each individual child makes. We are glad to have found a way to meet the legal requirements for educational sponsoring and in doing so are certain that we can make our work even more transparent and efficient.

India, The Philippines, September 2009
Jacynthe Omglin and Sven Volkmuth have visited India and the Philippines. In India they could get a better idea of the efficiency of our established partner organization Friends of tribal society which has set up the financial support of two villages. Jacynthe and Sven’s main objectives were to get in touch with the local authorities and assess the local population and its most urgent needs. We are sure that the experiences made on this trip will be very beneficial in the context of future projects.

WANTED: Student of Web Design
Encouraged by the success of our pilot scheme Run for Growth, in May 2009, we have decided to make charity runs a permanent part of our organization’s fundraising campaigns. In order to put this plan into action we are currently looking for a web designer who is able to create an internet portal for the many charity-run initiatives to connect with each other. This project, which is yet unheard-of, could be implemented as part of a diploma thesis. Should you be interested, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Essen, June 2009 - Update
During our latest special event „run for growth” almost 20 members and friends of „chance for growth” took part in a sponsored marathon and in doing so contributed over 4,000 Euros to our cause. To date 19 sponsorships have been set up for Filipino school children.
In time for the start of the new academic year, our on-site coordinator Lucy will start purchasing the necessary school material. The details of this mission are being discussed during her visit to Germany.
Choosing the children who are truly in need of a sponsorship and who are really eager to learn takes a great deal of tact and sensitivity in order to avoid this from being only a short-time educational experience for the sponsored children. For if they drop out of school somewhere along the way, the children will not be able to feed their families in the future. This is why we intend to admit more children into our educational programme only by and by. At the same time we are pressing ahead with the planning of a boarding school on the Isla, which is scheduled to be completed before the end of the year. The land has been purchased, the architectural drawings have been devised and are due to be put into practice by local craftsmen.

Essen, end of May 2009
The pain goes away, a feeling of pride remains.
As a sort of follow-up of our latest special event „run for growth 2009” – a sponsored marathon in the Ruhr-area – I would like to thank everybody who contributed to this truly successful project. Among those were some 20 people who ran the marathon/half-marathon but also many spontaneous „helping hands”.
I particularly would like to thank Anne Caplan for her patience in the process of designing and Markus Zyber from Sport-AT for the practical implementation of the sportswear collection for this event.
I should also mention Jule Kilimann (in charge of press releases) and Mr Barden (provided us with the top spot in the front row for our association’s information desk) and Sven Heupel from medico-sport (geared me up for my Marathon) – they all wholeheartedly committed themselves to our cause. The marathon as such gave everybody who joined us a good taste of the Ruhr-area, even if the weather could have been much better – to put it mildly... We are glad that all of us crossed the finish line and proud of the outcome of our sponsored marathon: more than 4,000 Euros were donated during this new project.
We surely hope that „run for growth” will not remain a „flash in the pan”…
Best wishes,
Christian Kories.

Philippines, January 2009
At the end of January, 2009 two of our founder members went to Isla Verde to plan the construction of a small boarding school for children. This boarding school will accommodate some ten to fifteen children and will save them their daily two-hour-walk between school and home, which can become exceedingly difficult in the rainy season. The children will be looked after and they will receive regular meals from Monday to Friday. Thanks to your kind support the foundations of this project have been laid.

India, Octobre 2008
With future projects in mind, we explored a very underdeveloped region in India, north of Calcutta in the state of West Bengal in October, 2008. Unfortunately, a project which had already been planned in cooperation with the local BEGAMUS association had to be cancelled due to political riots in that region. Instead, chance for growth will set up a medical camp in the southern part of India in 2009. Check out „Projects” –> „India”

Philippines, March 2008
In March of 2008 we carried out our pilot project in a remote and underdeveloped region of the Philippines, la Isla Verde. „Chance for growth” members performed unbureaucratic medical assistance for several days, using previously collected donations. After a first evaluation of the people’s needs we established a first contact with the local authorities, also with the mayor of the region with whom we were able to discuss the problems we faced as well as the proposed solutions. After finalizing the project we were able to arrange the first school sponsorships for children.