We provide assistance to several families in difficult situations that are part of the project “Remote Support” promoted by AVSI, an Italian NGO. Every week, we deliver essential goods to their homes, and we support the children through some activities, like study aid. In addition, our Centre houses a collection point for used clothes that are sent to those in need.
Material assistance
MASP provides support to 180 families who live in difficult situations in Almaty and in the Almaty region, most of whom are families with children with special needs. A smaller part are children without diagnoses who unfortunately live in situations of serious social and material disadvantage. For these people, the material assistance we provide them with is crucial, as they do not receive help from any other associations.
Every month, we buy food, medicines, and diapers. Recently, the situation has worsened due to the increase in the prices of essential goods, making these products a privilege for some. Part of this great work is supported by the "Remote Support" project in collaboration with the AVSI Foundation. However, for some years now the volume of requests has been exceeding our capacity to help. For this reason, we decided to try and find other ways to help these children and their families. All material aid is delivered directly by us or with the help of volunteers who have been working with us for years in distribution and in maintaining relations with these families.
Care
MASP regularly supports more than 180 children and their families. MASP workers and volunteers regularly visit families and distribute food, school supplies, and medicine to children. Among those we support are children and adolescents with severe disabilities, often with paralysis or incurable diseases.
This year we would like to support these type of beneficiary more, for example, by providing them with some things that could help them improve their situation. In fact, often these children lack special beds and mattresses, nutrition appropriate to their physical condition, breathing devices or creams for pressure sores. Unfortunately, all these items are very expensive and are not provided by the state.
The MASP team is ready to take care of the purchase and delivery of these products to the beneficiaries according to the needs of each, and we will also make sure that the families use the purchased goods as intended.
School-work assistance
Increasingly, we encounter the need to help the families that we assist in the education of children by supporting them in their learning paths, as they have large knowledge gaps and often miss school. Having a difficult situation in the family interferes with the learning process of a child - children often do not have the right conditions for studying at home, and there is often no one to supervise them or help them with their studies.
We created a small elementary school class that can hold up to six children in shifts, led by a teacher who helps them with their homework. The teacher seeks to identify the subjects that they find more difficult and then proposes individual working programmes. Lessons of 1.5 hours for each student run twice a week, within which the teacher looks after the children and, if need be, is assisted by the children’s social workers.
Good hands
Our Centre has a collection and distribution point of used clothes, which are taken to be reused in low-income families. To do this, we collect these clothes and distribute them to the needy. Things are brought in different conditions, and sometimes they need to be washed, ironed, or repaired. In addition, the sorting of the clothes is a costantly on-going task. Clothes that are irreparable are sorted and given to our tailoring laboratories to be turned into bags or other products that can be resold. It is also necessary to help those in need in choosing clothes from us.
In the last two years, we have been able to help more than 1000 families, by collecting clothes, shoes, and household items for them. In addition, we have donated clothes, sheets, and blankets to six different institutions and associations. This work is very important and, moreover, the last year the number of people coming to us for this service significantly increase..
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