A LITTLE SIDE TO GROW

3 phases to fulfill a dream

ACER CONIN
For more than 15 years, ACER CONIN has been assisting hundreds of children from 0 to 6 years in vulnerable neighborhoods, combating child malnutrition and accompanying their families towards a better life. Under CONIN methodology and MONTESSORI pedagogy, ACER has been working uninterruptedly to reverse brain deterioration in children with nutritional deficits and providing resources to mothers to support healthy families.

 
CHILD MALNUTRITION

It has been studied that children who fail to recover from brain damage caused by malnutrition in childhood are more likely to fail to complete primary or secondary education and even to become delinquent. Children who graduate from our Centers achieve not only a reversal of the signs of malnutrition but also a transformational change, several of them becoming standard bearers in kindergarten and even in elementary education!!

 
INNOVATIVE FUNDRAISING MODEL

Facing a situation of high inflation, we are redoubling our efforts to generate genuine resources that may allow us to continue with our mission, accompanied by a multidisciplinary team of health professionals, nutritionists, psycho-pedagogists, social workers and specialists in Montessori pedagogy. seeking to respond to the incessant waiting list of children and their families!

The innovation resides in perfecting a collection model that, over several years of constant execution (though spaced to monthly actions) we would be leading to something more sustained and recurrent as operating fairs selling used or new merchandise donations, and raising the frequency of sales to weekly actions. Today we are a group of 15 volunteers - the CONINAS - setting up (and dismantling) in our SI Center a monthly fair just on 1 day only, collecting between 15% and 20% of the total ACER monthly income.We estimate that this new modality would allow us to increase income from Fairs by more than 300% or up to 400%!

 

THE LITTLE HOUSE NEXT DOOR

This would be possible only by adding value to the adjacent property that would be available, granted on loan for free use by the neighboring Santa Rafaela Maria Foundation.  This building needs several minor repairs, cleaning and painting, but it would be a great opportunity for ACER to develop, at least for a certain period of time, a sustainable financing scheme with the collaboration of the volunteers involved.

The transfer of this property will facilitate the normal development of routine activities, which would not be interrupted monthly, as it is today, with the display of merchandise in the different rooms for exhibition, hindering activities that arre essential to our mission. In addition, the spacious and luminous rooms of the building would allow for training and education workshops for mothers and pregnant women, freeing up our own spaces for a better professional attention on CONIN days.

DIRECT BENEFICIARIES

These are mothers, pregnant women and children from 0 to 6 years old from vulnerable neighborhoods, specially from the Villa Uruguay and La Cava neighborhoods in San Isidro and Villa Las Flores in Vicente López, where surveys have revealed high indicators of social vulnerability and a chronic malnutrition in children.

The recent census showed a population of 12,000 people in the settlements of San Isidro and 8,000 people in Vicente López, both with 40% of children and young people.

RESOURCES

• Hiring of low-cost labor for repairs, painting, hauling, cleaning, weeding and others.
• Volunteers and paid staff for sales support.
• Merchandise in increasing reception - used and new.
• Staff available for interdisciplinary care (CONIN Model) adding Montessori stimulation for children on waiting lists and for eventual growth of our current model of full care capacity.

BUDGET

Phase 1 - The little house next door...

Estimated amount USD 1,500 (one thousand five hundred)

General cleaning, painting and installation of security system and alarms, repair of openings and fences, habilitation of services (electricity, water), habilitation of bathrooms, weeding of the back garden.

Phase 2 - Children on standby ... 6 children 6 months

Estimated amount USD 1,000(one thousand)

Phase 3 - GROWING UP IN ACER CONIN ... 12 children for one year

Estimated amount USD 4,000(four thousand)

INDICATORS

• Increase in professional hours
• Monthly variation of attended children
• Monthly increase in fair sales

FINAL COMMENTS

ACER stands out as a CONIN center for being a pioneer in incorporating and sustaining Montessori pedagogy as a fundamental tool for brain stimulation and recovery from the damage caused by deficient infant nutrition.

We fight welfarism by creating in the beneficiaries a sense of work and effort, emphasizing the empowerment of the individual through training workshops. We accompany mothers in a personalized way so that they can create themselves as strong, autonomous beings able to generate their own enterprises.

In terms of physical space, our San Isidro site is the most complicated.  Having enough space in the neighboring house will allow us to decompress the current facilities, moving actual workshop activities, improving the attention of the social shop and providing permanent exhibition of merchandise in an appropriate space, with a higher frequency of sales and an increase in the collection.

We dream with this little side to be able to grow and sustain our mission! Be part of our dream!   

 THANK YOU!!