Visit some of the families we serve in this Windows Media video
How you can help with this great opportunity

$25.00 provides a bus pass for one child to use the Center for a year.

$75.00 pays the total cost for one child to use the Center for a year.

The Help and Hope Center

Imagine coming home from school where you did not have the money to obtain a copy of the day's lessons.  Now you have homework assignments and no resources to complete them.  Your household includes your parents and ten siblings all living in an area the size of a one-car garage with a dirt floor and mud walls.  Where would you do your homework if you were able?  At least today you weren't at home fighting dengue fever again.

This is life for poor children in the Colombian frontier state of Tachira in Venezuela.  The majority of them are children of Colombian refugees who left to escape the violence in their own country.  One asylum seeker explained,” There is nothing here for us.  There are no jobs for me.  I worry about my children.  My life is worth nothing, but I want my children to have something better”. 1

Andean Aid is providing something better with The Help and Hope Center (El Centro de Ayuda y Esperanza) opening in Rubio, Venezuela.  This center will have spacious, well-lit areas to study with tables and chairs.  Books, reference materials, study aids, and supplies will be available.  In the near future we will have computers with educational software and Internet service.  Teachers that staff the center will provide tutoring and assistance.  They will also be advocates for these children in the public school system of Venezuela.  Children can use the center in the morning before school or in the afternoon and evening after school.

The Help and Hope Center is much more than a learning resource.  We will bring the children and their families the true source of hope, which is a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Also, the center staff will evaluate the children and their families to determine the barriers to learning and then seek to overcome them.  Assistance may come in the form of food, transportation passes, or home repair.

Our goal is a holistic approach that impacts the child, the family and the community.

1.         Quote from the Refugees International web site.  Article titled, “Colombian Crisis Forces Many To Flee Across borders”