We are excited to report that Michin is doing a great job in administrating not only the Knitting Machine program but the whole organization is amazing.

In a nutshell  they are an independent non-profit organization whose objective is to keep orphan and abandoned kids off the streets, give them a place to live with dignity, provide a family infracstructure so they can go to school, learn life skills, have fun and become good productive, educated citizens.

They have seven houses in a low income class neighborhood,  kids are  assigned to the houses according to age and gender for the older ones.  Each house has an admin and support staff, laundry, homework, meals, everything in each house.  Close by is the public school to which the children can walk. There is a nursery too!  Aside from everyday activities, the children are engaged in workshops, available are a bakery, (they make the most amazing roscones, more on that later), a woodshop , the instructor is a master woodworker, and the knitting workshop with our adorable Dora .

Children have access to healthcare, dentistry in both acute and prophylactic modes. Anyone who is a parent or has been around kids knows quite well what happens if one kid gets sick, pretty quick a family of 5 falls ill, think 17o kids!  As I said, distributed in 7 separate houses but each house might have an average of  30 kids, plus the staff.

One of the homes is reserved for battered women and their kids. Those women are either brought to shelter by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) or they seek shelter on their own.  This program is new, and demand is increasing day by day.

Michin houses an average of 170, one hundred have no legal connection to their families and can be adopted If they age out of the program, they have to leave, unless they are in school, and close to graduation. The close to age out population is our main concern, they have to have a skill that allows them to make a living and be able to tend for themselves. Machine knitting, woodworking, bakery are their options right now.

In a future post, I will tell you more about how the homes work. Show some pictures of activities, and tell you about our future goals.

One of the most fulfilling experiences of the trip, was chatting with the staff and finding that their goals and dreams for these kids are the same as  the Mission of Friends of Colombian Orphans.

We need your help, we have big goals, we can do it! We have to help these kids!  We have gone far from  where we started, we will keep on going.

Can you help?  Don’t be shy $5 or more, anything will help.

Friends of Colombian Orphans will be holding a fundraiser in Oxford, England on 11/11/11. Board member Karen Brooks is having a birthday party that day, and has requested NO GIFTS – instead, guests have been requested to donate to FOCO and to bid on some wonderful raffle items including dinner for two with British author and US food television celebrity Simon Majumdar, salon gift certificates and baby clothing knitted by our Colombian cooperative.

FoCoKnits was thrilled to receive their first contract. Our instructor, Dora, and her team of 5 knitters made 117 school uniform sweaters for the kids at Hogares Club Michin. In addition to learning how to make these good looking sweaters, the girls also learned about sourcing yarn and costing out materials and labor. Every completed sweater is money in the bank for these enterprising young women!

Bogota January 2010

Our January trip to Bogota was both fun and instructive! We met with our knitters for the first time and were not only able to see them in action, but also had the opportunity to have some fun together! Every girl received a donated mp3 player, lots of hugs and lots of encouragement to keep learning. They are finishing up their first contract : school uniform sweaters for Hogares Club Michin, where our young ladies live. The machines were all in use, and red yarn was everywhere! (the color of the sweaters)