Online Version of Newsletter No 2 - Sent 6th September 2011

We have arrived!        

After a manic week, emptying our house in Cobham of personal belongings and getting things ready for the new tenants, we moved into my parents for a few days before our flight.  We’d like to say a massive THANK YOU!! to the wonderful people who helped us with the last minute, cleaning, repairs and packing away.  You are angels!! 

It was great to have that bit of time at my parents to decided what to bring with us, weigh our cases, take out some things, put some things back etc etc.  We had a lovely family farewell lunch at my brother Angus’s (he is an amazing cook). The following day Louis, Hilary and Adam saw us off at the airport.  

Our flight was in two stages, firstly London to São Paulo arriving at the international airport then travelling by coach to the internal airport where we met up with our friend Fernando (who was at school with me in Cobham back in the 70s!), then catching a flight to Uberlândia, the city that is to be our home for the next year. 

At Uberlândia aiport we were met with the most amazing welcome.  Many people from the church and social projects we are working with were there to meet us with banners – AND  Phil and Gill and the kids came all the way from Goiânia as a surprise to greet us!  Then we were whisked us off to a “chacara” (small farmhouse) for a barbeque lunch.  The next morning we were introduced to the church at a breakfast where there were more banners!  A lovely welcome!

Change of Plan for our Accommodation

A couple of days before our arrival we had an email from the friends that had been negotiating the rent of the property we had looked at in April.  The landlord was to be putting the rent up quite significantly and someone else who had heard about our arrival had a property right opposite the church and offices of the social projects for Missão Sal de Terra in the Vigilato area.  It is a bigger house so will be great for accommodating visitors from the UK and was available within a few days (it was being decorated!).  She dropped the rent from the market value to match the rent of the smaller property.  Amazing!  We were hosted by Gilberto (on the right in the photo above), the CEO of the charity we are working for and the pastor of the Vigilato church until our house was ready.  We were moved in by the Friday.  The couple in the house we looked at in April are still selling their furniture to us and have let us have some in advance  though they are not moving until 8^th September.  So we are rattling around a bit but have the essentials until then.  But ... we need plants!! Maybe we will have a housewarming party and instead of “bring a bottle” it will be “bring a plant”.

Settling In - During our second week in Brazil and first week in our house it took a few days to get a cooker, phone etc and only got internet at the end of our third week.  Ben has managed to get his mobile phone sorted (after 3 hours in the mobile phone shop) but Darcy and I still have lovely phones that we can’t use!  We managed to get a car the same day that we moved into our new house.   Also during our second week a team from Hereford were in Uberlandia and we toured all the social projects with them.  I think there is a couple in the group that may be interested in getting involved in the work at Monte Moriá which would be great.

A welcome break in Araxa - We had a lovely break (from the little stresses of sorting out the home and adjusting to life and the heat) when we were invited to a weekend away church leaders and managers from the social projects.  It was in a city a couple of hours away called Araxa (pronounced Arasha).  Phil and Gill and the kids were their too and came to stay with us in our new house the night before we travelled. 

Monte Moriá and Aprender - On our return we had a meeting at Monte Moriá with the director of the children’s home.  He has been anxiously awaiting our arrival.  We will start work there next week.  We are scheduled in to teach on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  He was very keen that we teach IT and English so I have agreed to run those classes whilst Ben runs more creative workshops with a view to broadening the vision of what can be taught.  At the Araxa weekend we made a connection with someone that works at the City Hall in the Education Department and are in the process of arranging a meeting with them in relation to the Aprender Project and in the first week we were here met someone who lectures in Electronic Engineering at the University.  He also happens to be the secretary of Missao Crianca, the charitable trust that runs Monte Moria.  Ben made a visit to the University to meet up with his students.  This is going to be a very good contact for both projects.

School for Darcy - This week Darcy has had some visits to schools, taking part in classes to see how she likes it.  A school she has settle on where she made some good friends is Colégio Batista.  It’s a little further away from our house than the other schools we looked at but much lower fees and we will also get a discount for being volunteer workers.

Music - I got the chance to sing a couple of numbers with the jazz friends I’ve made here when we went along to an outdoor event at the Mercado Municipal – the old city market – a lovely old 1920s style building that has a cool indoor market and various stalls in surrounding buildings during the day.

New Friends - We have made lots of friends already - through church, through music and through the various educational activities we are involved with.  We have been invited out to country clubs, leaving parties etc and had a lovely evening at the home of a couple we have made good friends with that have been helping us out in all sorts of practical ways – Evandro and Erica.  They don’t speak English which is very good for our Portuguese, have taught us how to cook rice and beans correctly and we watched a DVD together - Fast & Furious 5 (in English with Portuguese subtitles – there was no other option) – set in Rio!

Support

Thanks so much for supporting us with all your lovely emails, comments of Facebook and Skyping.  It really helps.  Thanks too for supporting us financially.  Here is a little breakdown of how things are going:

As I mentioned in our first news letter we are here on volunteer worker visas which means we will not be allowed to receive any remuneration for the work we are doing.  As well as living costs there will be expenses for materials for running workshops at Monte Moria and admin costs for raising sponsorship.

At the moment we have about £5000 capital remaining (we’ve already bought a car, a cooker, fridge and second-hand furniture ), made up of some finances we took out against our Anyards Road property and some generous gifts from friends and family.  We have regular income from renting out our properties in Cobham and in Brockley in South East London totalling just over £900 per month and through Stewardship Services we will be receiving just under £140 per month (including tax rebate) from friends and family that have signed up to give regularly.  If you would like to support us with a regular monthly amount, You can either fill in the “Supporting Ben & Liz Cole” leaflet or give through your own Stewardship Services online account which you can easily create by logging on to www.stewardship.org.uk. Or you can call them on 020 8502 8560.

Keep in Touch - There are a number of ways we can keep in touch:  Let us know if you would like to be on our mailing list  lizcole99@hotmail.com. Facebook of course! www. colesinbrazil.blogspot.com to see regular updates online and Skype liz.cole99 or mrbencole. 

Online Version of Newsletter No 1 - Sent 27th July 2011

What are we doing in Brazil?

For the next 12 months we are moving to a city in the Brazilian interior called Uberlandia.  It is a city that not many British people will have heard of and is not on the usual tourist circuit but its geographical position makes it quite significant in terms of transit and logistics in Brazil and many large distribution companies are based there.  We will be doing two main things:

Representatives for Aprender

Firstly we will be the representatives for Aprender, a charity set up by our good friend Phil Hawkins, the aims of which include helping to improve the public schools by supporting the teachers with training and encouragement to move towards more active learning.  You can read much more about Aprender on the website http://www.aprender.co.uk/.

photo opportunity after running a workshop

We will initially be working with a municipal school called Odilon Custodo Pereira in the Sao Jorge area of Uberlandia.  We ran a workshop there in August 2010 with a team of students and teachers that we took to Brazil for three weeks, and had a meeting with the directory (lady in purple) to talk about ongoing support for them through Aprender, when we visited Uberlandia in April.

Monte Moria Childrens Home – Technical School Project

Secondly and mainly we are working in a children’s home called Monte Moria helping them to get a technical school building project off the ground.  This home is one of the social projects under the wing of Missao Sal de Terra and has its own charitable status Missao Crianca.  The home shelters children that are orphaned, abandoned on the street or placed in the home through the courts being deemed “at risk” in their current situations. 

Ben and Liz with Carlos Mercadante

The vision of this lovely gentleman who has given his life to running this home, it to address another of the issues of education in Brazil, the lack of practical and technical subjects.  He has been given a piece land next to the school and would like to build a technical school for the locality as well as the children in the home.  He can see that by introducing the young people to more vocational studies in practical subjects they can be inspired to pursue a different route in life other than drug dealing and prostitution which will begin to feature in their lives at around 11 or 12 if not shown an alternative. 

Ben and Phil looking at the plot of land that the technical school will be built on (while some little ones take the chance to "run free")

Initially we will help to run information practical workshops and as we establish connections in Uberlandia and the surrounding area, pursue fundraising and sponsorship for the school build.  The architectural plans have already been drawn up and in such a way that each classroom or workshop can be built one at a time.

Day to Day Living
When?

Darcy and Ben have their last day at Heathside School on 22^nd July and we have booked our flights for 5^th August 2011 arriving in Uberlandia on 6^th August.  We are moving out of our house in Anyards Road, Cobham on 31^st July and staying with Liz’s mum and dad just down the road in Stoke d’Abernon.  Out tenants move in on 1^st August so we will have a few days still in the country while they settle in. 

Something else we fitted in to our busy lives before the move is the marriage of our first daughter Hilary to Adam which was on 16^th July.  They were keen that we hang on until they return from honeymoon before leaving the country for a year.

The lovely couple!

Where?

In April we made a trip to find a place to live and a school for Darcy.  The final papers have yet to be signed but we found small house, just big enough for the three of us, plus and office/guest room downstairs where we can accommodate visitors (come and visit!).  It is in a small gated condominium in the Karaiba area.  Its called Condominium Inglese(!) because the houses are terraced which is unusual in Brazil.  We are on the end of the terrace which is good in terms of music noise we tend to generate!  We will be opposite some Brazilians we already know that lived in Redhill for a while.

We found several suitable schools for Darcy and the directors very kindly offered for her to spend the day at each school before deciding, after we move.

How?

We have applied (and been granted!) volunteer worker visas which means we will not be allowed to receive any remuneration for the work we are doing.  The costs we will incur will be living costs, materials for running workshops at Monte Moria and admin costs in relation to fund raising and establishing sponsorship.  We will be able to cover some of our costs with the rent from our property in Cobham though we will still have mortgage payments going out plus insurance etc.  We also own a rental property in South East London but have offered this to Adam and Hilary for the rent of two people for the next year, rather than the three person rent we were getting but that is still a bit of income. 

A number of friends have kindly said they would like to support us with a regular monthly amount and we have set up a Stewardship Services account that can be donated through which includes tax efficient giving if donors are UK tax payers.  On-off amounts can also be donated tax efficiently through this account.  And donors can give anonymously if so desired.

You can either fill in the “Supporting Ben & Liz Cole” leaflet (email me for one) or give through your own Stewardship Services online account.  You may already have one for giving to all sorts of causes tax efficiently or otherwise or you can easily create one by logging on to http://www.stewardship.org.uk/. Or you can call them on 020 8502 8560.