This year I will be travelling to Buenos Aires with 10 other Year 12 pupils. Hogar el Alba, is a warm and welcoming family dedicated to helping those in need. They take in as many children as they can afford to, from deprived backgrounds, and provide them with food, shelter, and an education. This is done in a family environment with a homely boarding house system. Boys, girls, older and younger children all live together and the older ones help look after the younger ones. When the children are younger they attend the adjacent school along with locals from the surrounding slum, and when they grow older they learn a trade. The Hogar educates, for free, hundreds of the local teenagers, giving them the skills required to get a job and become self-sufficient. They learn farming, cheese-making, animal husbandry, beekeeping, butchery, bakery and so on. No child is ever asked to leave the home at 18 years old when the Government funding stops - this happens in many other institutions. Children stay at The Hogar until they have a steady job and somewhere to live. Some choose to stay at The Hogar and work there as maintenance teams, bakers, chefs and so on for a simple wage, sometimes as little as just bed-and-board only, because their love of the family of The Hogar is so strong. The Hogar has not received the government money it ought to have for many months and has thus become totally reliant on the donations.

Our work at The Hogar will involve waking up early in the middle of the South American winter, then it’s a simple breakfast and off to work. We will be working everyday to renovate the facilities, which they cannot afford to do themselves. This includes sanding, painting and cleaning various buildings and outside areas.

I would be grateful for any donations to this cause: the money we raise not only goes towards the maintenance of the Hogar, but to buying new furniture and equipment for the children.