At the current time, Para Los Niños is working to improve the lives of children who live in the state-run homes in the La Paz Province of Bolivia. The homes are run by the government social welfare (SEDEGES). We work with 10 different homes including homes for abandoned, abused and lost children, adolescents, disabled children and adults and the elderly:

Hogar Virgen de Fatima
Virgen de Fatima is a transitional home which houses around 100 children from newborn babies to 7 years old. The children have been abandoned, abused, orphaned, or lost. The home is split into two parts -- 4 salas (housing newborns to age 3) and 5 casitas, small houses, where children live in a family environment with one carer ("mamita") who works on a 24 hour rotation shift. Virgen de Fatima has a kindergarten which the small children attend in the mornings. The older children attend a local school. Read more

Hogar Jose Soria
The Jose Soria is a transitional home which houses 60 - 80 children from 5 - 15 years old who have been abandoned, abused, orphaned, or lost. The home has inaugurated a new building containing the children's dormitories, a study area and the laundry area. The old building is used as offices for the staff and classrooms. The home has teachers that come in every morning to teach the children. There is only a small group of children that attend a local school. Read more

Hogar Los Andes
Los Andes is a very small, transitional home in el Alto which offers shelter to between 10 - 14 children who have been abandonned, abused, orphaned or lost. Only some of the children attend the local school. Due to the location of the home it often recieves less support from the SEDEGES and from local volunteer organisations. Read more

Centro de Terapia - Mujeres
Mujeres houses girls between the ages of 11 and 17 and the number of girls living in the home varies between 10 and 40. The girls are often victims of trafficking and are in the home for their own protection. In the home they learn basic domestic skills, carrying out daily chores such as cleaning, cooking and washing. The girls have classes every afternoon in the home with two teachers. The volunteer group that works in the home also has two employed volunteers that teach the girls knitting (including crocheting and handbag making) and hairdressing to help prepare them for when they leave and need to earn a living. Read more

Centro de Terapia Varones, houses between 10 - 20 teenage boys who have had a run in with the law and live in the centre anywhere between a few months and a few years. The boys have school classes in the mornings and in the afternoons play sport in the patio or other activities. Read more

Centro Felix Mendez Arcos, houses teenage boys who come from very poor families or who have no family that can care for them and have lived in childrens homes from a young age. The boys learn technical skills within the home such as carpintery, electronics, car mechanics and attend a local school. Read more

Hogar Kallutaca
“Granja Kallutaca” or Kallutaca Farm, houses mentally handicapped adults. Kallutaca is located on the high plains above the capital city of La Paz, surrounded by snow-covered mountain ranges. The sun is quite fierce at this altitude of around 4000 meters (around 13,000 feet) but the air is extremely cold in the winter months, dropping to zero centigrade indoors at night. In the home the adults live quite isolated, but in truth, quite happily. They enjoy one another’s company, and are supported and cared for lovingly by the personnel. Kallutaca Farm is dedicated to the practice of communal agriculture and animal husbandry Read more

The IDAI is an institute for mentally handicapped children and teenagers, although for lack of other institutes there are adults, who have often spent their whole life there. There are about 115 interns split into 4 main sections of the home. Pabellon Esperanza houses the small children and babies, Pabellon Amanecer houses the most profound cases of teenagers and adults and Pabellon Mujeres and Pabellon Varones house the rest of the teenagers and adults. Pabellon Mujeres and Varones and some of the children from Pabellon Esperanza attend the school located in the institute in the mornings along with external students. Only two of the interns from Pabellon Amanecer are able to attend the school. Read more

The IRI is an institute for physically disabled children and teenagers. The centre offers operations, treatments, physiotherapy and rehabilitation to external patients who stay between a few days and a few months in the centre before returning to their family. The centre also has 11 interns, 8 children who have no family that can care for them and 3 adults. The home is working with these adults to help them integrate into society. Read more

The Instituto Erick Boulter currently has a very large population of 73 including interns from Erick Boulter both adults and children and women from the Ex-Villa Victoria, a home that was closed down. The Erick Boulter interns include children who are deaf and adults with both hearing loss and a mentally dissability. The interns from Villa Victoria are women from age 20 and above who are mentally handicapped.

The present economic crisis in Bolivia means that support is needed more than ever.