HOW CDUK BEGAN WORKING WITH CHILDREN & COMMUNITIESIn 2002 Ros – our chairman, & founder, visited family in Quilmes, Buenos Aires in Argentina. She was horrified at the poverty & destitution she saw in parts of the city & its environs.
An educationalist – Daniel De Scala, visited Ros & asked for her help as he had heard that she had always worked for charities in the UK. He knew that people in the UK were very generous but that they did not know much about the poverty in South America & the awful economic crash that had occurred in Argentina in 200/2001 when the AR Peso was devalued by two thirds. Many thousands of people lost their jobs & their homes in the crash & became destitute consequently more shanty towns grew in many areas including Quilmes. They desperately needed help!
Daniel took Ros on a tour of the shanty towns – Villas, surrounding Quilmes. Ros agreed to try to help a Soup kitchen – Comador, that fed 130 destitute children twice a day – Luz Del Alma (Light of the Soul).
Ros wrote to friends, sending photos & asking for a donation of £5. When she returned to the UK some weeks later, she had to open a bank account for the generous donations that had arrived. One thing led to another, fundraising continued, Trustees were recruited & Compassion Direct UK, became registered in 2004 after a generous donation of £500 from Banbury Rotary Club.
Ros had semi-retired from being self-employed for some years after working for The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for many years as a Regional Manager. Shortly before her visit to Argentina she had intended to continue a part time Training business that had been part of her previous PR business. Somehow the training never got started because CDUK took over Ros’s life.
During this time CDUK raised money to build a security wall and gates at the Comador, built a homework room & sewing workshop for children and parents, a store room for dried food & recruited a group of local volunteers to maintain continued assistance & support to this project. As CDUK grew other projects followed &new directions were pursued.
Photos, man going to a stream for water in a shanty town, Argentina, children of mothers with HIV in Rwanda, who will soon be orphans, children living in a shanty town in winter, Argentina 
