Saturday, June 30, 2012

Eye Hospital embraces APS Down School

APSDOWN
         
Up Down Project has contacted the main Eye Hospital in Londrina area and now has a new partner who will also collaborate with APS Down: Londrina Eye Hospital (Hospital de Olhos de Londrina) - Hoftalon.

The Hospital has signed an agreement with the APS Down School and will provide free care to the 130 students with Down Syndrome and the 50 children in the nursery next to the institution.


Primeiros Olhares
   

The Londrina Eye Hospital created, in 2006, the First Looks Project with the objective of taking care of Londrina´s and surroundings preschool children´s eye health.
The project has the support of the educational authorities of local government and partnership with the local optical shops, which wil donate glasses to the children.
  

On Saturday, 21 July 2012, a team of doctors and staff from the Londrina Eye Hospital wil go to the institution to provide care to the 130 APS Down students and 50 children from nursery attached, Haydee Colli Monteiro Creche - Nursery .


Attention Families, keep an eye on that date!

21 July, 2012


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

June Festival at APS Down 2012




Saturday
23rd June 2012, 14h

 June Festival 
at APS Down

Londrina - Brazil






Festa Junina (June Festival), also known as festa de São João for their part in celebrating the nativity of St. John the Baptist, are the annuall Brazilian celebrations historically related to European Midsummer that take place in the beginning of the Brazilian winter. These festivities, which were introduced by the Portuguese during the colonial period (1500-1822), are celebrated nationwide but are particularly associated with Northeastern Brazil. The feast is mainly celebrated on the eves of the Catholic solemnities of Saint Anthony, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Peter. June parties are celebrated in many countries around the world. However, they are particularly popular in Christian European countries.
As Northeast Brazil is largely arid or semi-arid these popular festivals not only coincide with the end of the rainy seasons of most states in the northeast but they also provide the people with an opportunity to give thanks to Saint John for the rain. They also celebrate rural life and feature typical clothing, food, dance (particularly quadrilha, which is similar to square dancing).


Like during Carnival, these festivities involve costume-wearing (in this case, peasant costumes), dancing, drinking, and visual spectacles (fireworks display and folk dancing).

The traditional costume for the parties is ´Caipira´, or ´Country´ in English, and the people enjoy square dancing dressed in an assortment of chequered shirts, straw hats, painted freckles and riding boots.  Men dress up as farm boys with large straw hats and women wear pigtails, freckles, painted gap teeth and red-checkered dresses, all in a loving tribute to the origins of Brazilian country music.
Today, above all, June parties are a great reason for churches, schools, colleges, companies and even families and friends to get together to have some fun and let their hair down. Every weekend during the month you can encounter the Country Music of a Festa Junina close by.

Special thanks to Rafael, Marcia & Viviane.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

See who you are helping

We prepared these colorful and cheerful panels to decorate the institution and to show you some of the children and young people´s smile for whom we are voluntarily working .
The panels are on display at the APS Down.
There is room for more photos, bring yours & participate in the UP Down Project!








Saturday, June 9, 2012

Down School & Kitchen Project in the Internacional Midia


The Industrial Kitchen project we are voluntarily developing in an association between the local brazilian Rotary Club (Alvorada e Londrina SUL - D4710) and Rotary Club of Armidale Central, Australia (D9650), is already in the local media in the two countries. 

How did the project start?
After the flood that devastated the APS Down School (Brazil) in October 2011, we contacted the Rotary Club of Armidale Central, Australia (where I participated in the Youth Exchange Program in 1993) and presented the difficulties the Down School was going through.

Rotary Club of Armidale Central took the initiative to develop an international project to help the school. In a conversation with the Down School Association´s president, Elena Veronesi, the idea of ​​making a Industrial Kitchen emerged. The main idea was to install and fit the kitchen to accommodate Down Students, which could become a form of income to the school and the students.

Mrs Veronesi´s idea of an industrial kitchen, and Armidale Central´s initiative, togeether with the participation of two Londrina Rotary Clubs has now become a partnership with the Rotary Foundation.

This week was published an article about the project in the leading journal of Armidale, The Armidale Express.

Folha de Londrina, the main newspaper from Londrina city (Brazil), also documented the Solidarity Lunch, promoted by the local Rotary Club, to contibute to the Down School Kitchen project
BRASIL
Folha de Londrina Newspaper - 07 of June 2012
" Elena Veronesi, Luciana Belomo, Claudia Hintz, the event coordinator Lazara  Caramori, Rotary Club of Alvorada´s president and Mrs Kimiko Yohii, during the Solidarity Lunch promoted by the rotarians, with the  University Unifil collaboration, at the Graciosa Club. "


The Armidale Express
    
Australia

    
Rotary´s Brazil boost
VICTORIA NUGENT
04 Jun, 2012 04:00 AM
AN EXCHANGE student’s visit to Armidale almost two decades ago has led to a new project for Armidale Central Rotary Club involving a Down Syndrome school in Brazil.When Rotary members Ian and Helen Garske travelled to Brazil in October last year, they reunited with Luciana Belomo Yamaguchi, who stayed with their family for three months during her Rotary Youth Exchange in 1993.
During their visit, Ms Belomo Yamaguchi showed the Garskes the APS Down school where she volunteers in the city of Londrina.
The school aims to educate people with Down Syndrome aged from two to 60 and also provides a creche for preschool-aged children and some physiotherapy services.
Mr Garske said the Rotary club was happy to put money towards a well-deserving project, contributing almost $5000 in a matching grant, with funding also contributed by two Rotary clubs in Brazil and the worldwide Rotary organisation to make up a total of $13,000.
“It’s great for the club to have remote contact with an exchange student who spent time in Armidale,” he said.
“They were very quick to say, ‘let’s put in some money’.”
The funding will go towards the installation of an industrial kitchen at the school, with the goal to teach students basic cooking skills to help them be self-
sufficient and to give them a way of fundraising money for school.
Mr Garske said although Rotary participates in matching grant projects in Africa and Asia, the involvement with a South American country was more unusual.
“Brazil is an interesting country because it’s highly developed in some senses but it has a huge population of poor,” he said. “Basic services that we take for granted aren’t necessarily available.”
Mr Garske said the club was being kept up-to-date on the school’s process by Luciana, who runs a blog about the project.
“Having a contact in the city through Luciana means the language barrier has been overcome,” he said.
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Sunday, June 3, 2012

The willingness to help



APS Down school in Londrina, southern Brazil, which was already presenting financial difficulties to keep up, accumulated more debts with the necessary repairs ​after the October flood (2011). The school has received donations and thanks the goodwill of all volunteers will but currently still has about R$35,000 in debt to suppliers (approx. $17,000).




The current Down School´s volunteer treasurer, the HSBC Premier Bank´s retired manager, an economist with 40 years of career and my father, Roberto Ariozo, is donating his time and his knowledge to balance the school´s finances, by selling raffle tickets, promoting events and cutting spendings as much as possible. But the debts are still high.




The community can help by donating any amount to help in the payment of such debts or help in other ways:  you can donate your time, labor, knowledge, educational toys or objects. 
Contact the treasury of the APS Down for more information


contato@apsdown.com.br  
If you need translation into Portuguese, we´ll be happy to help you:  updownproject.org@gmail.com
    School´s phone number : +55(43)3338-9038 (only in Portuguese)


The heavy rain that occurred in the region of Londrina in the afternoon of October 15, 2011 caused flooding and havoc in the city, where 95 mm of rain felt over a period of 6 hours.
APS Down was flooded with lots of water and about 50 cm of mud.
The institution´s back wall could not stand the force of water and collapsed on the water main supplying water to the building. Rainwater and the water from the broken water mains took all the mud into the school. 

The school was clean but still recovering from damage caused by rain and mud.
Materials, toys, books, food .. much has been lost.
The electrical wiring, wood floors, furniture, computers and freezers were damaged.
Pupils were about 3 weeks without classes.
The students and the staff were welcomed by the Institute of Blind People (ILITIC) and the classes and therapies continued in an adapted space for more than a month.

  Without the backwall, the school remained open and subject to looting for weeks.
It was necessary to hire security personnel.
But with local help, slowly the school is still getting organized.
Associação dos Pais e Amigos dos Portadores de Síndrome de Down.
contato@apsdown.com.br
Thank you