Project Amigo

Project Amigo is a non-profit corporation whose mission is to enable the poor children of Colima to achieve their highest potential by providing educational opportunities, material support, enrichment activities, and medical and dental services not otherwise available to them.

 

Project Amigo facilitates partnerships between North American and Mexican Rotary Clubs to sponsor projects which benefit the children and their families. These projects have included building Colonia Rotaria, low-cost housing for poor families, and the installation of libraries and computer labs in children's group homes and rural schools. Many Project Amigo projects depend on the hands-on labour of volunteers from the United States and Canada.

[Photo to right: Children receive regular dental check-ups thanks to volunteer dentists like Dr. Bruce Benton from Coos Bay, Oregon.]

Project Amigo is an independent, non-profit corporation, not part of Rotary International. The organisation works very closely with Rotary Clubs in Mexico, the United States, Canada and other countries. Most of the donations that support Project Amigo's programs and services come from Rotary Clubs and individual Rotarians. However, about 35% of Project Amigo's donors and supporters are non-Rotarians, and none of their activities are restricted to Rotarians.

 

Project Amigo provides medical, dental, education 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.

Medical and Dental Care

Dental, vision, and hearing screening and treatment -- services that are not otherwise available to poor children and their families.

Literacy Initiative

This is designed to improve early childhood reading skills and the enjoyment of reading for pleasure.

Christmas Fiesta

Every year Project Amigo and the Colima Rotary Club host a party for several hundred children. The party includes clowns, piñatas, dinner, a small toy, shoes, and a new set of clothes -- often the only new clothes they ever receive.

[Photo to left above: Ruth and Charlie Magill from Vermont, and Terry Bennet from Novato, help children select fun children's books of their very own. The children live in Colonia Rotaria, a neighborhood of houses built for poor families by Project Amigo with money donated by US Rotary Clubs and Districts and Rotary International.]

A Day at the Beach

Only children enrolled in school are eligible for the annual Project Amigo Beach trip, so it provides children an incentive to stay in school. 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. The trip is a joint project with the Colima Rotary Club. Rotary volunteers prepare the traditional tortas (shredded pork sandwich on tasty roll), donating the ingredients and organizing the making of 600 sandwiches for many hungry children.

Distribution of Donated Items

Project Amigo accepts donations of useful items, such as school supplies and good used children’s clothes and distributes them to needy children, schools, and group homes. For a list of items currently needed by Project Amigo go to http://rotaryprojectamigo.org