Tamam Mexico
Pedernales is a village located in Mexico's third poorest state, Michoacán, in western Mexico. Michoacán has about 5 million inhabitants and is about the same size as Austria. The capital, Morelia has about 1 million inhabitants. 100 km south of Morelia is Pedernales with about 7 000 inhabitants. The village is surrounded by beautiful bushy mountains and blooming sugar cane plantations which is rather reminiscent of the Jungle Book. The climate is subtropical and exotic fruits of all kinds such as oranges, bananas, mangoes, papayas and guayaba grows in and around the village.
In January 2009 Tamam started a group consisting of the coordinator Glafira Reyes Magaña, the Mexican representatives of Tamam Adalberto Perusquía Jasso and Maria Mirna García Guido and ten volunteers in Pedernales. The group organizes homework support, activities and workshops once a week for children in the deep poverty. During the homework children with parents lacking school background are given assistance with homework and play in an organized fashion. They may also learn baking, painting, design and go on excursions in workshop sessions. All activities are aimed at strengthening the children's self-confidence, study motivation, initiative, teamwork and trust in other individuals.
Tamam in Pedernales will also organize excursions to enhance children's social awareness and interest for the world outside the village. By strengthening ties between young people and convey different traditional knowledge through workshops, Tamam hopes to contribute to an interaction of civil society which in turn can lead to new livelihoods. Through sports and organized games Tamam want to shift the focus from abuse, gang formation and suspicion to positive social environments in which each one has a intrinsic value and feel needed. Tamam in Pedernales reaches out to children and young people aged 10-13 years. The children are taught personal hygiene such as brushing teeth and receives a meal of rich, locally produced food during activity opportunities. In Mexico, which has the world's top soft drink consumption per capita, malnutrition or obesity due to improper diet is usual. Tamam wants to contribute to reducing the consumption of such products and instead increase the intake of milk, fruits, vegetables and grain bread.
For the local community to feel involved Tamam Pedernales receives some food products in sponsorship of the village's business owners and individuals. In the spring of 2009 Tamam Lund intends to send the first volunteers from Sweden. This person will most certainly increase the curiosity in other cultures, countries and languages from an almost zero level, simply because that this type of meeting has not taken place before. Tamam also hopes to expand the group to more children and multi-activity opportunities.
Tamam Pedernales are run the mostly with funds from Tamams Swedish donors. A smaller sum also comes from local sponsors. Support Tamam Mexico by giving a donation and mark your payment with "Mexico". You can also become a monthly donor for Mexiko.
is responsible for the work of Tamam in Latin America.
To stay up-to-date with the latest developments, check out our Mexico blog! You'll see the latest posts below. Some might be in Swedish, but go here for all blogposts made in English
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