I have recently made the online acquaintance of someone who has adopted Colombian kids, and who wants to help our organization in some way. She has a great blog: here is the address:
http://raisingcolombiankids.blogspot.com/search/label/Adoption%20Statistics
She has lots of great information in her blog about all sorts of interesting aspects of this wonderful country!
Those of you who followed our adoption blog and our Christmas blog know our “adopted” orphanage as Ciudadela de la Nina. It has changed hands and is now being administered by a different organization. Although Carmen, the admin, lost her job (and, by the way, has moved to the USA to be close to her older son who is studying here!) the change appears to be good. Sr. Edgar seems to have the girls’ wellbeing at heart. The organization has purpose and goals (if you speak Spanish and are interested in this, there is a link to a power point presentation on this website.) 
It’s really hard for me to just sit and wait for something to happen. I appreciate the feedback that I have been receiving from a number of great people: one friend in LA has offered to help with fundraising and I’m all over that. She and I are going to talk today. I’m envisioning a page on this website where visitors can buy donated items: restaurant certificates, knitted items…the sky’s the limit.
I’ve been applying for grants – I have 31 proposals out there right now. Think positive thoughts!
Since the last post, a lot of thought has gone into how to proceed with our project. Thanks to the regional branch of the Foundation Center, I’ve learned how to apply for grants and have been sending out grant requests every day for 2 weeks. We’ve also received a few generous donations which have been acknowledged on the website. Our friend and board member Karen in England, has been selling her homemade habanero jam – all proceeds go to the charity!
We have a wonderful machine knitter who has committed to going to Bogota to teach knitting, once we have raised enough money. Our goal is $15,000 for the project startup. We are currently at around $5000.
We also authorized the repair of a gutter at Ciudadela de la Nina in Madrid, outside Bogota. When we visited Christmas 2007, it rained and the dining hall flooded. We were told that this was a regular occurence. Fixing this will cost $600: the money has been sent, and our friend Mario is going to supervise the repair, as he did with the window repairs. Apparently there are 80 windows again that are broken, so we have to think about getting those fixed.
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