Help for people affected by fire, Valparaiso 2024

Dear Friends, 

We wanted to share with you this wonderful experience. We were invited to collaborate on a project called “Mi barrio resiliente”, which would translate as “My resilient neighborhood” alongside the Pacto Social Foundation and the company Reviste.

This project turned to the experience of the Ishinomaki earthquake and tsunami in 2011 looking for ways in which design could be of aid to people who had lost so much, as it happened in Viña del Mar after the fires at the beginning of 2024.

It resulted in a day of community work and enjoyment. Reviste was in charge of the whole organization, the design of the furniture and the materials, Pacto Social Foundation was in charge of the territory management, reaching out. We as Minga Foundation supported the work of reaching out and we took on the carpentry workshop where we were able to build a set of 4 stools for 50 families of Villa Independencia, who also received a drill to support the rebuilding process. 

There was some live music to accompany everything and we shared a good barbecue with everyone.

We have also been supporting the community of Forestal Alto, Manuel Bustos Camp and Villa Independencia in alliance with Red de Alimentos putting together and distributing food and hygiene supplies, as well as in the “Movidos X Chile” program of the Community of Social Organizations (COS) distributing food supplies and hygiene products for children, men and women. 

Thank you for your support, it means everything to us and it helps us be able to carry on,

Kind Regards,

Dear friend,

February was a very hard time for Viña del Mar and surrounding areas, a huge fire that lasted for days reached several communities in the hills and burnt more than 9.000 hectares, losing dozens of lives. 

In response to this emergency, several organized groups started working on different areas in support of the communities. During the month of February we carried out various projects to help the people and families that were affected by the fire. 

In situations of catastrophe there are many needs and different problems emerge. As we work, we aim to generate activities around emotional support, mainly through encounters and games. On the other hand, we promoted and coordinated help from different communities and organizations, in order to provide material assistance to the affected families. 

In this way, we conducted workshops in shelters for play and emotional support, as well as volunteering to build tables and basic furniture for the families. The local company Geotecnia Ambiental and their team joined us for a full day to build tables for the affected families. We did a collective carpentry workshop day, managing to build 16 tables that were later donated to families at Villa Independencia. The goal behind this kind of initiatives is to support the social responsibility work of the companies, and at the same time cater to the communities specific necessities.We also channeled donations of food and hygiene items, managing the transportation and delivery of these to affected families.

We would like to highlight the constant work in alliance with Maderas Concón, Red de Alimentos (Food Network) and the Community of Solidarity Organizations.

Regards,