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For some time the Thomsons have been supporters of a private community project in the north of Brazil, in Bahia, an area where we have recently built a house.

The project, known as “The Garden of the Angels”, involves the provision of creche and pre-school care for the many poor children of the neighbouring town, “Favella”, and the surrounding area. It is through this project that their parents are enabled to go out to work in the knowledge that their children are safe and are being well looked after. Many of the children live in areas of serious poverty and come from broken homes or have very young mothers. The need to provide some stability and a sense of community value to children from such deprived backgrounds is obvious and the benefits are enormous.

Like all projects run entirely by volunteers, the extent of the help they can give is governed by the availability of funds to provide existing facilities and support individual improvement projects. They would like to help children beyond the age of five, they would like to provide more activities, they would like to give them a better meal, but doing more depends on finding more outside support.

We feel that this cause, which is very personal to us, would be appropriate for Julia’s memory as she worked for a period for a similar project in Peru. The charity, which will be personally administered and controlled by us, will support and expand the Garden of Angels and, if possible, other local projects undertaking similar work.

Our ultimate goal, if we achieve sufficient support, will be to provide a new building “O Centro Julia” to expand the school facilities and provide opportunities for the older children to discover talents that will enable them to break out of the poverty trap that surrounds them.

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