Greetings to you all as we send this Christmas Update about our work in Medellín, Colombia,
where I spent last August together with Paulette Brown, the Chairman of our Trustees.
Let The Children Live! was founded in 1992 by Fr Peter Walters, who went out to live in Colombia two years later. Since then, hundreds of children living and working in the street have been given new hope with education and the chance of a real future. Teenage mothers have been helped to keep their babies and have gone on to make good parents whilst also studying for a career. Children have been protected and saved from the hundreds of criminal gangs whose word is law in the shanty-towns, and who often turn boys into assassins and girls into prostitutes. There have even been reports of the virginity of young girls being auctioned on the internet by the gangs.
Although most of our normal activities had to be suspended during the Covid lockdowns, Casa Walsingham, our day-centre, was still very busy because we converted it into a temporary warehouse in which our staff could prepare food-parcels for families who had no income because they were not allowed to go out to work in the street. Thanks to the loyalty and generosity of regular donors like you, Let The Children Live! was able to sustain more than 1,200 people throughout the crisis. However, we were unable to do much in the way in of fund-raising at that time, and this has caused our reserves to become depleted.
So what did we see and experience whilst we were there in August?
We saw the joy and life that is in our children because of the hope the charity gives them. Hope of protection and safety, education, food and health care, hope of being loved and valued and of being given the chance of a future. This is played out in our different programmes, and it was a joy to visit them all.
Take the St Maria Goretti Group, made up of teenage mothers and their beautiful babies. The
youngest mother we met was twelve, followed by a fourteen year old and so on. Young girls who are making good mothers with the aid of our staff and twice-weekly visits to Casa
Walsingham where they can socialise with the other young mothers whilst their babies and toddlers play with toys they would never have at home in the shanty-towns. Most important
of all, the charity gives them the support they need to be able to stay at school. The mothers also receive guidance on baby care and extra food supplements for the toddlers. Their babies were beautiful—-a joy to see. We also saw these young mothers visiting a doctor with their babies, for free. How was this? Well, Dr Dávila was a former pupil at Casa Walsingham whom the charity supported during his medical studies. Now a fully fledged doctor, he gives time every week to see our young mothers’ group as a way of giving something back to the charity.
Then there were the children who make Cor Videns, our choir. They serve as the voice of the
children of our other programmes, and put on concerts to publicise our work. Many of the choristers come from very poor and difficult backgrounds, and would have had little chance of developing their musical talents. However, they flourish in the choir, where they sing in Spanish, Latin and English and study musical theory. Most of them also learn to play an instrument. One of them is a flautist, and he has recently been accepted to start a degree next year. Three former choristers are currently doing degrees in music. Another graduated some years ago and is now the Choir & Orchestra Director of the Medellín Polyphonic Studio.
When Paulette and I arrived on 9th August, we were met by the choristers at the airport. Later in our stay, we heard them perform a concert at a theatre in the city. The standard of song and musical accomplishment was very striking. They are undertaking a busy programme of concerts and services over the Christmas period. 
During term-time, the choristers attend local schools in the morning, and then come to Casa
Bannatyne, our other property, where they receive their musical formation, do their home-work and spend the night. They go home on Friday, and return to sing at Mass on Sunday. In the meanwhile groups of 14 boys or girls from our other programmes come to stay to benefit from a variety of educational and recreational activities. These are so popular that the children usually do not want to go home. They therefore continue throughout the school-holidays, except for the short periods when the choir comes back into residence. However, space is very limited, so we have obtained planning permission to add an extra floor to most of the house. Sadly, these have now had to be shelved because of lack of funds.
When the children come to Casa Bannatyne their joy and excitement has to be seen to be believed. For a few days they live in a warm, happy loving, violence-free environment where there is good food, access to warm showers, help with school work and lots of fun! Just to be there with them is a real tonic. This time also makes it possible for problems to be detected and addressed and for the families to have a break from the tensions that exist in the overcrowded, cramped and violent conditions of the shanty-towns.
Our last weekend in Medellín was focused on the Chapel at Casa Walsingham for the annual Forty Hours Devotion. This is a period of continuous Eucharistic Adoration during which time prayers are offered for the Charity, its children and staff, and for all its benefactors. Our children love this. On the Friday night a group of girls stayed over at Casa Walsingham, and “slept’”on mattresses on the floor of one of the carpeted classrooms. “Slept” may not be the
right word to use because very little, if any, sleeping went on! At regular intervals one of our staff fetched a small group of them to go to the Chapel and pray for 20 minutes or so, to keep up the chain of prayer. Most of the boys are Altar servers, and Fr Peter had become concerned that the girls had nothing special to wear in Chapel. To remedy this, a quantity of simple
white lace mantillas had been acquired for them. These were used for the first time during the Forty Hours, and the girls were delighted with them. They thought they were splendid and felt very special wearing them——though, being little girls, much adjusting and fiddling went on! The next night was the turn of the boys—minus the mantillas, of course!
We have plenty more to tell you about our visit, but the rest must wait until our next update because unfortunately we need to share some other news that is more urgent.
Because of the continuing cost of living crisis, most people are not able to give as much to charity as they used to do. Many charities and parishes are in dire straits, so it is increasingly difficult for us to obtain invitations to make appeals. Several weekends during Fr Peter’s visits to the UK thisyear were wasted because we could not find parishes for him to go to. There are still quite a number of empty weekends in Fr Peter’s diary for 2024, so it would be a tremendous help if you could persuade your local Catholic parish priest to fill one of them. We would also welcome invitations from primary and secondary schools for a speaker from the charity to come to give a talk about our work.
Another problem has been that the number of people who kindly remember Let The Children
Live! in their Wills has also fallen, and most of the legacies the charity has received have not been very large. Although such small legacies are certainly very welcome, it is unfortunate that the fact that testators so often divide their estates between numerous charities means that none of them receives an amount that is large enough to give a really substantial boost to its work. All this was bad enough but, as you may have heard, on 1st November 2023 Let The Children Live! became a victim of the “debanking” crisis when Barclays suddenly suspended our account. They accepted that this was a technical fault on their part, but it took them until 17th November to activate our account again. During this time we were unable to pay-in or withdraw funds, and all the donations that were sent to it by Standing Order were automatically returned to the donors. The compensation Barclays are offering is less than a quarter of what the charity has lost. As a result of all these factors, the income of Let The Children Live! up to the end of November 2023 was more than 29% lower than it had been in the same period in 2020. Consequently, thecharity has been forced to cut back by 25% on the funds that it sends to Colombia each month from about £40,000 to about £30,000 – a level which we hope and pray it will be able to sustain in 2024.
Inflation in Colombia is currently running at about 10.15%, and consequently at the end of this year the Colombian government is expected to decree a rise of at least 10% in the minimum wage there. All of our Colombian staff our paid in multiples of the minimum wage, so the combination of the reduced support from Let The Children Live! and the effects of inflation will probably lead to a fall in about 35% in our operating budget in Colombia in 2024. It was therefore clear that drastic action was needed to cut costs in Colombia, and this has now been taken. We have ended the contracts of nine of our staff in Medellín. That was a third of the workforce, and although it has reduced our costs, this step has also limited the number of children whom our remaining staff can attend. We do not think that it would be right to compromise on the quality of the services we provide, even though this means that, most unfortunately, many fewer children can now benefit from them.
Casa Walsingham, our day-centre, used to be open for six days per week: but this year that has been cut to only five. The long school holidays in Colombia are in December and January, and Casa Walsingham will be closed completely for two weeks in December and for the whole of January. As usual, however, the generosity of our supporters in Scotland has ensured that all of our children will be able to receive Christmas presents and enjoy the Christmas festivities. Casa Bannatyne will remain open every day of the year. It has dormitory as well as teaching accommodation, but the number of children it can receive is limited by the lack of space, so the groups of boys and girls who use it are currently having to change every three or four days. As you can imagine, the measures that we have had to take have been difficult and painful, but with your continued support we are confident that Let The Children Live! will continue to provide the vital nutritional, educational and spiritual support and other services on which our children in Medellín rely. Please remember them in your prayers, and if you could manage to send them an extra donation this Christmas, they will benefit from a better start to 2024.
The children, Fr Peter and I wish you many blessings this Christmas and in the New Year.
Pauline Allan,
Administrator