--   SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY > Street Children in Ecuador
Daniëlle
Children's Fund

Daniëlle Children’s Fund is a non-profit charity organisation, based in the Netherlands. Our mission is to help children in need in Nepal and Ecuador. We focus mainly on educational, social and medical support. We strongly feel the need to share with the children what God is giving to us.

In both countries we run two types of programs:
- Family support.
- Children´s homes.

The family support program in Ecuador aims to help poor families with children to finance educational and medical costs. Often children are working in the street in order to make some extra income for the family. They cannot go to school. In Ecuador no education means no hope for the future! Supporting a child will not only help the child, but will help the whole family.

Our childrens´ home, Clarita Luz, is located in Ambato. It offers a temporary home to children in need, with the aim to reunite them with their familis. Many kids in Ambato live in the streets for economic reasons, even though they do have parents or family. It is our strong belief that, if possible, a child should always live with its own family!
When a child enters Clarita Luz we will provide what the child needs. Especially love! At the same time we will prepare the child to go to its real home. During this process we will be working with the child and the family. Replacing a child is a long-term process, which will continue after the child has left Clarita Luz.

The Daniëlle Children’s Fund is looking for people and companies who would like to support our projects in Ecuador and Nepal.
In the Netherlands DCF works only through volunteers. Therefore we have no overhead costs. Every pound, dollar or Euro you donate goes straight to the children and the children´s homes.

"After travelling in Africa, Russia and Romania, and seeing these children first hand, I simply could not forget them. I decided to leave my job in the city of London and went to work in a children hospital in Nepal. Personally I believe it is a privilege to share with other people what God has given to us and I feel very gifted."

Helma van der Hoeven
DCF Director

 
 

The Street Children in Ecuador
As Ecuadorians we are; grateful for being fortunate enough to be able to have access to education, we feel strongly a social responsibility to help the most vulnerable members of our society: the street children.

According to the Latin American Press, 10.000 children work and live in the streets of the cities of Ecuador. They have made the streets their own home. Outside a modest restaurant at night in Quito, a little ten year old boy named Robert tearfully recounts: "I work to make my living, so that I can buy food and help my grandmother."

 
Many children like Robert who sells newspapers, sweets, or clean windshields inhale glue to escape from consciousness and the painful reality of hunger. These cases are part of the sad urban reality of the major cities of our country.
"Life in Ecuador is not easy. The life of a street child in Ecuador, however, is extremely difficult and dangerous.
There are many of these children... no house, no food, no love. For most of the tourists they are part of the city landscape. It’s something people come to expect in third world countries. No real surprise. Sad. To give them a dollar is often a reason to forget them a few minutes later. Many do not realise that these children are real. Little human beings with hunger for food, for warmth and for love. Unfortunately, they do not disappear when the tourist turns the corner of the street."

Helma van der Hoeven

Andeanface is directly linked with projects to help these kids, as one of its directors Helma van der Hoeven - is the founder of the Daniëlle Children’s Fund ( ), a charity organisation from the Netherlands which helps children in need.

Clarita Luz Children's Home
It has taken one and a half years to start, but finally we are there!. Clarita Luz is a real children’s home, which helps poor kids.
Andeanface and the Daniëlle Children’s Fund created it to offer a temporary home to children who cannot live with their own parents, for a particular reason. In the city of Ambato there are many street kids. Many come from indigenous communities around the city. Some are orphans, but often the parents abandon their children for economic reasons. In these cases Clarita Luz does everything to reunite the child with its own birth family. When this is not possible an alternative family is sought. Clarita Luz believes that a child is always better off living in a real family.
During their temporary stay, Clarita Luz offers the children not only the basic necessities of life, like a roof, food and clothes. It will also be working to build the child's future and self-esteem by providing education, love and care.

Clarita Luz started it's operations in June 2006. Currently there are around 10 to 14 children aged from 2 to 11 years old. The voluntary work program at Clarita Luz consist of helping to take care of the children, teaching English, to construct more rooms, to paint and to maintain the garden. In other words… there is lots to do!

 

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