Mediterranea's tentacles

We were given a defibrillator from a large yacht in Palma, and we have passed it on to a sister organisation that also works in Africa called Resurge Africa and is specialized in re constructive surgery. We are please to inform our friends in the nautical world that the help get to where it has to and to where it is most needed. Thank you all for your solidarity and compassion.

Milk program

Our milk program for children in Mallorca is growing.

Last week we sent 600 litres of milk to the handout point in Palmanova and on Tuesday over 400 will be delivered to Santa Maria, aside from that the 505 children in Sa Pobla will be getting their 15 litres a month as recommended by the world health authorities. Needless to say, the roofless people we help in Palma, over 330, also will be getting their supplies as usual.
Thank you all for your support. We hope to continue growing and helping more and more people, and specially children, going through difficult times.

Educational program for Sa Pobla

The objective of the program is to reduce the academic failure in the children that are receiving help from Mediterranea NGO, so that they may finish their compulsory education  and so as to encourage them to carry on studying with the aim to get higher qualifications and training. This will help them to have a better future when they become adults. The crisis has shown us that people with qualifications are four times more likely to get a job than those without.
Our objective is to strengthen their maths, reading and writing skills in the two official languages. This will make the studying of other subjects easier for them.
We also intend to stimulate the habit of reading by creating a lending library with books for children and teenagers.
We are also trying to convince the parents about the importance of studying and completing the basic educational requirements.

We will give a total of one and a half hours tuition a week and the kids will get a snack after the lessons.

Special children, special needs.

As most of you know we now have 5 children with special needs in Abugida. The new children have been evaluated by our team of Specialists in Child Psychomotricity, and the first children to be accepted in our program have been reassessed. Various case specific apparatus have been made to help the children in their mobility and in the training of it. Some of our volunteers discovered a hidden carpenter and engineer inside of them and those things that they could not build were made by the local carpenter.
In this picture we observe Besurikade, quite a character, one of the newcomers, happy as punch with his new walker.

 Laura, our senior Occupational Therapist, sent us this picture of Habtamu. He is a little boy form la Sebeta that comes to the Messi room every day for stimulation therapy.     This picture is impressive, it shows how Habtamu has learnt to crawl, he had not been able to do so before in all of his five years of life.
Laura informed us that the teacher and monitor of the Messi, Kedist, works very well, and that Laura often writes to her giving her advice as to how to continue with the good work and developing her skills.
Kedist's professional abilities are evident by the results obtained in the stimulation and therapy carried out on little Habtamu.
The work carried out by the monitors in the Messi with the children that go to the Sebeta for help and are not children form the actual Sebeta Blind Children's school, is 100% volunteer work, which is admirable and heart-warming.

Easter Charity Party

In the Superyacht industry, we all enjoy a very privileged and sheltered lifestyle compared to so many around us. We get to enjoy the very best of many lovely locations without necessarily seeing the abject poverty and deprivation which exists all around.

Mallorca is no exception and the wonderful crew of S/Y Aglaia took note of this situation and decided to do something to help, to give back to the island. They joined forces with Complete Marine Freight with the aim of, not only throwing the best dock parties in town, but also using these events to raise funds and supplies for underprivileged families and deprived children. Local charity Mediterranea feed and distribute much needed supplies to hundreds of these families every day. STP also became involved providing a safe and controlled location for these parties in the shipyard and the first event last year raised almost 3,000€ and over 200 Christmas presents for kids were donated, not to mention clothing, blankets etc.

We are pleased to invite you to the second Party for the Kids to be held in STP on April 5th 2013 - there will be a beer and wine bar, cocktail bar with a professional mixologist, BBQ and Salads, great music and great company!

All food and drink is donated (please feel free to contribute) bar staff, mixology team, DJ etc are all volunteering and all monies raised will go directly to the charity. We are also requesting a donation of either kids clothing or food supplies, baby food or supplies which can be dropped off as you enter at the Mediterranea table.


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CONTACT US

Complete Marine Freight SPAIN
Tel: +34 971 432 600
Fax: + 34 971 432 190
Email: info@completemarinefreight.com

Complete Marine Freight UK
Tel: +44 (0) 23 80381951
Fax: +44 (0) 23 8038 1921
E-mail: uk@completemarinefreight.com

News and thoughts from Dignipac program.

As Dignipac celebrates its second year running (YAY, we are two years old!)  Nicky and I  thought it appropriate to share some of the experiences that we have encountered in Mediteranea´s  endeavour to make life more dignified for those who are more unfortunate than everyone. 

From the sometimes embarrassing bulk shopping - bumping into a distant friends husband in Mercadona with a shopping trolley overflowing with toilet paper, or worse,  sanitary products, and him NOT asking why........and you know that he has noticed!

 Or loading up the trolley with 110 litre bottles of shampoo,(half of which we each buy)  which is a lot, pushing the damn thing in a hurry to get to that one check out lane that has a lone elderly woman buying some galletas and leche.... then panicking when the trolley reaches an uncontrollable speed and there is a very real danger of mowing down someone´s beloved abulea.

 Or my absolute favourite.....buying all the Dignipac hygiene products and then at the check out, usually at Mercadona, I need to buy bags to make up our Dignipacs.  We have found, with good reason, people are happier carrying a bag that displays a supermarket logo as opposed to a rubbish bag or something similar.  Anyway, month after month I assure the lovely ladies at the check out that Mercadona packs their plastic bags in groups of 100.......and I  would like to purchase 3 packs - or 300 bolsas de plastico.  All this I say in my bad Spanish, and  then, I look them in the eye, very closely, and just smile......... big cheesy one actually.......well, no, the bigger one comes after they have finished counting.  I must learn how to say ´told you so´in Spanish.

What we have to mention is the help that our young people have contributed over the past two years.......Alice, Katy, Matilde, Sebastian, Lucy, Tomas and others.  Of course these jovens cannot contribute with the shopping but the hard work is also in the packing of the bags.  We set up in my garage in Costa den Blanes and have like a chain gang type of system.  But of course, all these products need to be sorted out, toothbrushes need to be separated, razors need to be put on one bag, the dreaded loo rolls and pads in their own places.  70 Dignipacs are made up for the women and 150 for the men.  Everyone takes two bags and goes down the procession of goods, then each bag is tied up.  Nicky and I, looking after our poor old backs have been known to take a break, cuppa tea whilst these young people make a contribution that is so very much appreciated.

Which brings me around to our distribution - firstly, Angel, who runs Zaqueo ( the soup kitchen in Palma) is the most amazing person and along with the unseen volunteers, deserve a round of applause.  We have been at Zaqueo in the summer, and these good souls are working in a local about 45 sq metres, no fans, no air conditioning  in stifling temperatures, shirts opaque with sweat....  Maybe we should find fans?


But, Dignipac, most importantly  is about our homeless people, they exist in all shapes, sizes, colours and languages.  We try in the summer to provide footwear (anyone who has size 43 and upwards, we want your flip-flops, shoes, sandals (NOW) as there are so many lovely African men with feet the size of ironing boards.) and the winter we find specials in Carrefour and include socks and underwear.  We also always need blankets, warm jackets and socks!  Socks! Our last distribution was in  mid February and by chance we had in the van a few boxes of clothes, jackets and a big bag of socks.  Well, we were practically mobbed for the socks, so please keep this in mind.  There was a very humble man that came up to us and told us that he is a poet and that he had gotten into a fight with some gypsies  (gitantos) who had beaten him up, stolen his money and most of his clothes.  He had found an ill fitting jacket and someone had given him a pair of trousers.  He was worried, as are most of our homeless that the Dignipac pack will run out before he is finished and he will not be able to have one.  We assured him that we would keep a Dignipac aside for him and that he should have his meal in peace, no problems. Our homeless have to eat at the soup kitchen before they get the Dignipac-  Anyway, we rummaged through this box in the van and we found him a big, warm fleecy jacket.  Upon his return, we gave him his Dignipac and the jacket - and, hand on my heart.............hairs on my arm raising here ........ this amazing guy gave us all, slowly and with a lot of thought , a poem, each of us in turn -  me - I´m Fee, Nicky and Soren ...........right there, right then. His eyes glistening, heart open, smile upon his face.  Awesome, bloody awesome experience.....


A very wonderful person, she knows who I am talking about ......   donated clothes, blankets  and a big warm, fleecy  jacket last distribution.  And, I have to share this...........I was standing by the car, there was a feeding frenzy with the socks, Nicky was manning the Dignipac table, I had a man who told me that he was a sailor, probably an ex sailor, but he needed warm clothing.  An African boy of about 23 years old was also peering over his back. Interestingly,  there  were two people standing next to him - we had run out of socks by then :-)  I rummaged about the box and all I could find for this ex sailor was a hoody in bizarre colors......which he was very happy for. We were so amazed when I found a Slam jacket, light blue that fitted this young African boy so well and warm..  Big smiles all around.  In the box were three blankets.......next to Zaqueo about 5 to 10 people live on the street, under some amazing arches, I grabbed the blankets, walked over and in my crap Spanish, said, do you want these?  There were whoops of joy..............my heart feels good that we can help, if even a small way.

When all was said and done, Soren and I were going endlessly through the box of clothes..........we only had one........there was a man who looked at me beseechingly...........I did tell him in my embarrassingly bad  Spanish that there were no clothes left for blokes.........and, sorry, sweetie, I will make a note for next time.  As a joke I pulled out a poncho that was made by the very wonderful woman whom I was talking about....This poncho isn´t your bog standard poncho. Aila made it ............and it is classy, brown and turquoise!

Well, what a hit with this homeless man..........his first reaction was ä mi encanta!! - and then I gave him the matching scarf. - mi encanta....again............such a happy man...............

My message to everyone - do you self a favour - do someone else a favour x

Fiona