Addressing the Abandoned Children of Argentina

One of the most basic rules for any society is that children must eat and be cared for, but for the families in Argentina who have been fighting inflation rates of 53.55% in 2019, 34.28% in 2018, and 34.28% in 2017, the people are starving, literally, and the government has lost substantial financial control over their ability to help. For many communities today, soup kitchens, charitable programs, and donated expiring food items are all the average family can afford. While it is understandable that many countries have financial challenges that preclude feeding all of the people all of the time, Argentina is a magnificent producer of food, where much of the unsold products to the world market have, in years past, simply been plowed back into the earth.

Synergence Ventures works directly with over 1,700 food production cooperatives in South America. This is not 1,700 companies, as each cooperative can comprise between 15 and 100 different farmer groups of the same commodity. Considering the difficulty of the families, and the fact that unsold foods are of no value when inefficiently destroyed, we have discussed together the essential requirements of food efficiency, and deployment for the benefit of the people, and the life of the children. These cooperatives encompass hard-working farmers of all types and variety, from poultry or fish harvesting workers, to meat packing, grain, rice and potato merchants, to the fruit, vegetable, and nut growers, who in total actually produce over 850% of the food required to feed the entire population of the continent. Exceptional financial problems like this are not easily handled, nor absorbed by the vast majority of already struggling Argentine families, and the solutions have looked distant and unlikely.

In this beautiful country, filled with precious and innocent children, families have been challenged for years with the most difficult choices. Argentina is currently a land where with average income you can pay your rent, or put gas in your vehicle to get to work, or purchase electricity or wood for heat and cooking, but not all three. As a result, dramatic amounts of children are being lost to the streets, or more accurately, put into the streets by their families to beg, as the family structures have been so severely compromised. The costs of food have skyrocketed with the inflation as well, and with the cost of ground beef rising from 143 pesos per kilo to over 203 pesos in just the last year, families struggle every day with the choice of losing the entire family to starvation, or setting one or more of the children walking, or begging for their food, that the other children might live.

Synergence Ventures Corporation, in affiliation with Merendero Corazones Solidarios, Mujeres Emprededoras, and many other institutions, and serving with the joint efforts of the International Red Cross, Doctor’s Without Borders, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Health Organization (WHO), Knights of Malta, Ejércit0 de Salvación, and the Salvation Army , we have engaged with the Cooperative Organizations of Argentina, and begun a pilot program in 2017 that has grown to feed, and house, over 47,000 of these homeless children in a network of large and smaller facilities, within the States of San Luis and San Rafael, Argentina.

Much of this work had been initiated by Merendero Corazones Solidarios, who is the largest and oldest Charitable Non-Profit in Argentina, as they started their good works by feeding and housing these homeless children many years ago. On meeting with Natalia Aumanda, and recognizing the value and essential nature of this work, Synergence, through Dr. Amir Khosrovi’s constant effort, began to tie together the Cooperatives for the food donations, with his friends in the many charitable and health-based organizations above, to effectuate the continuous distribution, medical needs, educational requirements, and general emergency protections, that have allowed this humanitarian effort to begin to flourish. To view the daily efforts of our endeavor, you may click the pictures below, or any of the active links above.

We are proud to announce the opening of our newest children’s group center opening at the San Rafael

Offices, where our opening luncheon served 39 children, and a number of parents. Just opening the week of June 17, 2020, this facility has 20 acres of contiguous property, that is being considered for acquisition.

The children had an absolute blast, and we post a song video with other videos below. Our starter project is already feeding the children lunch and dinner meals, snacks, and the suckers were an instant success. Thank you for the endless efforts to get this project initiated, Johana Romina Manzanares. In her spare time, Ms. Manzanares also has input and translated the United Nations k-12, high school, and university textbooks to enable distance learning during the time of Covid-19, and beyond.

Working with Grazie Canella, our foundational partners have been giving Senior Citizens Centers the opportunity to participate and reinvigorate their cooking skills to make jams, jellies and marmalade, some which is donated for the children, but much of which is sold to retail, friends and family, generating income for the Seniors, and newly recaptured pride of culinary demonstration by the third age people. If you wish to duplicate this program, we have found the their website to be helpful in having constant new recipe projects to be attempted.

While we feel a sense of accomplishment that we are doing some good work for the people, that through the kindness of our Cooperative Partners for the daily granting of the required food, and the management and distribution capacity of our partner organizations, we are jointly making a dent in this national problem, there is little ability to relax. Without this operation, our 47,000 children would have nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep, and nothing to eat. Rather than pride for helping a bit, it is essential that we expand, as newly released figures estimate that there are currently over 650,000 children in Argentina who are roaming the streets, searching daily for sustenance, and a safe place to sleep at night.

As a recent update, on the 12th of June, 2020 Dr. Khosrovi requested assistance of the military to stem the devastation, who sent chefs and food into the barrios in an attempt to help families feed their children. An additional 1,500 meals are being provided through their assistance, and completed meals are being delivered to needy families in an effort to stem this terrible lack. Our thanks for the assistance of the government, and our hopes that this program can expand enough to keep the children fed, and safe, with their families.

Our mission is to save these children who are falling through the cracks, and we endeavor daily to increase the funding, and capability, of this mission. To all of the cooperative members, and their workers, that make these cooperatives such a powerful force, who have chosen to forego profits for the sanctity of life, and to the continuous and expanding joint efforts of all partnering organizations, who distribute to, house, and benefit these abandoned children, we forever extend our thanks for setting priorities that are important, indeed essential to the downtrodden and the needy. It is not what we do for ourselves that differentiate us in the eyes of the world, or with our G-d, but in what we accomplish for others. Blessings, and prayers, to all who serve, that others may live and flourish. Every day counts when there are over 5 million children in trouble within the country, so if you have ideas, or the ability to help, please send an email to us here.

UPDATE

Adding an update on February 12, 2021, we are still focusing on this project every day, and working to expand the growth of this project for all Argentinan children. According to national figures, the troubled and abandoned children now number over 6 million, and our program needs to be extended nationally at least 10 times what is being accomplished by all of the fine partnering organizations below. Thus, with all of the success for the few we can help, it seems that by need fulfillment, we are still going the wrong direction. The official inflation figure for 2020 was 36.1% but it is notated that in the poorer areas of the country, this figure is actually several points higher. While we have many tools to leverage the financial value of donations that could make a single gift continue to assist for years, we are horrifically challenged to fulfill the needs of the people nationally, much less internationally. If you have a philanthropic desire, and the ability to make a donation, we have internal operations, direct cooperative partners, and trading platform operations that can multiply the value of said gift many times over the years. As with any need of such consequence, it would be helpful to have an angel who might help us to reach higher levels of grace and utility. You may reach Marc Guest, our CEO, for any questions at the following link.

Partner Organizations