Children's Services

Sponsoring Children

Child Sponsorship Form

Project Amigo provides medical, dental, educational and enrichment services to several hundred poor children who are enrolled in kindergartens and primary schools in the city of Colima and nearby rural areas. All of these programs are supported by sponsorships.


Enrichment Actvities

• Christmas Fiesta
  Every year Project Amigo and the Colima Rotary Club host a party for several hundred children. The party includes clowns, piñatas, dinner, gifts of new clothing and shoes – often the only new things they ever receive – and a “goody bag” filled with small toys, toothbrushes, soaps and shampoos, and other treats. The children enjoy a fun-filled afternoon of games and dancing, and a visit from Santa
  
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• A Day at the Beach
  Some of the children who live within a few miles of the coast had never seen the ocean or spent a day at the beach, before attending the Project Amigo field trip. Children have the opportunity to visit Colima’s Sea Turtle Preserve, learn about the environment, take a boat ride into the estuary, and swim in the Center’s pool. The trip is a joint project with the Colima Rotary Club. The Rotarians and their wives prepare traditional tortas (shredded pork and condiments spread on a thick roll). They donate the ingredients and organize the making of 500 sandwiches for 200 hungry children and Project Amigo volunteers who help supervise the children’s activities throughout the day.
  
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• A Day at the State Fair
  The kindergartners from the Quesería labor camp come from the most humble of circumstances of any child in our program. Yet, surprisingly, when they had their choice of interactive activities at the State Fair, they chose the Driving Station staffed by the state Social Services agency.
  
  The children learned about use of helmets for bicycles and motorcycles; and about what different traffic lights and signs mean. Most of these little ones saw their first traffic lights ever on their way to the Fair in the AmigoBus (there are none in their town).
  
  Walking them through the large animal exhibits was a thrill for the volunteers who accompanied them. The children had not seen animals so much larger than they.
  

Dental and Vision Care


Project Amigo carries out dental and vision screening and treatment not otherwise available to the children. Volunteer dentists examine thousands of little mouths each year, and treat those who need attention. Youth groups play a role in preventive dental health programs by visiting rural schools, teaching children to brush properly, and applying fluoride to help strengthen teeth against decay. A cadre of professional and lay people runs a vision campaign each year where 1,250 needy adults and children are examined and provided the glasses they need to improve their vision.

Literacy Initiative


Project Amigo's Literacy Initiative is designed to improve early childhood reading skills and the enjoyment of reading for pleasure. Literacy programs include the delivery of mini-libraries of 200 fun children’s books to poor rural schools, replacement books for schools that received mini-libraries more than a year previously, and a Book of One’s Own program that provides books that the children get to keep for their very own.


The Children

The young children helped by Project Amigo programs live in two concentrated communities and several rural villages outside the City of Colima.

• Quesería Migrant Labor Camp
  
• Project Amigo built and staffs a school for children living in the Quesería Migrant Labor Camp, many of whom speak Indian dialects rather than Spanish. Your donations to our Migrant Children’s Fund pay for educational, medical, and social services to the children and their families. For more information about the Quesería Migrant Labor Camp and the services provided by Project Amigo, see our Quesería page.
  
  
• Escuela Constitucion
  
• Escuela Constitucion is a government-run public primary school that serves 350 kids, mostly poor and indigenous, in the village of Cofradía de Suchitlán. Children attend school from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
  
  Families in the village make their living in the fields cutting sugar cane, picking coffee, planting and harvesting corn, or in minimum-wage construction or housekeeping jobs. Most adults have completed less than a 3rd grade education. Their children are their hope for a better future.
  
  
• Suchitlán
  Escuela Gorgonio Avalos is a government-run public primary school that serves 550 kids in two shifts in the village of Suchitlán. The children are mostly poor and indigenous. The morning shift of students attend school from 8:30 to 12:30; those in the afternoon shift go from 2:00 to 6:00pm. It is generally the poorest children who are those assigned to the afternoon shift. The village has approximately 4,000 inhabitants, some of the oldest of whom still speak their native language: Nahuatl. Families in the village make their living in the fields cutting sugar cane, picking coffee, planting and harvesting corn, or in minimum wage construction or housekeeping jobs
  
  
• La Nogalera
  La Nogalera is a tiny indigenous village 2 km south of Project Amigo's headquarters in Cofradia de Suchitlán. The community has a kindergarten and a three room primary school, both run by the government's Department of Public Education. The primary school serves 62 students in first through sixth grades. Families in the village of La Nogalera make their living in the fields cutting sugar cane, picking coffee, or in other minimum wage jobs such as labor in construction or housekeeping labor. Most adults in this community have had little or no education. Three students from La Nogalera have finished primary school and have entered Project Amigo’s scholarship program. One of them is studying Law at the University of Colima.