Finding Asuncion's Most Vulnerable Kids

Last week I told you about a Vacation Camp being run through Viva’s network of projects and churches in Asuncion, Paraguay. At the beginning of the week it was so cold that the kids weren’t leaving their homes, and we had fewer campers than we’d expected. But our teenaged volunteers from two local projects – a day centre for youth suffering the effects of HIV/AIDS and a care home – braved the chilly streets and invited local kids to come join us for the rest of the week. On Monday we had 30 children. By Thursday we had more than 100 children and 40 teenagers!

On the surface, the goal of Vacation Camp was to warm up the local children during the week’s winter holiday, and give them something to do. In the impoverished neighbourhoods where our network of projects and churches operate, many homes don’t have heating. Even if they did, the parents can’t afford enough fuel to keep the house warm all day. On top of that, parents have to work every day just to feed and house their children, and paying for day care is out of the question. Hundreds of children spend their holidays sitting in a freezing house, bored, unable to go out because the streets are so dangerous.

Warming Up in Paraguay

All this week dozens of vulnerable children in Paraguay are having the time of their life, while at the same time building life-saving relationships with projects and churches that want to help them … thanks to the power of working together! We’re calling it “Colonia de Vacaciones”, or Vacation Camp.

It all started last Christmas when Red Viva Paraguay (‘Red’ means ‘network’ in Spanish) threw Viva Christmas Parties for almost 1,500 children in several central neighbourhoods of Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital city. These Christmas Parties are a great way to introduce kids to projects that want to help them, and for projects in our Paraguay network to get used to working together. Throwing Christmas Parties for hundreds of vulnerable kids takes a lot of teamwork!