Ínterim Report Copame
2007

In an effort to keep you informed about Copame, the home for orphans, abandoned and maltreated children, we would like to give you a brief outline of the present situation. In the form of this interim report, we try to keep you updated and are summarizing below the way your gifts and contributions were spent. We consider ourselves very fortunate that many people continue to support us after all those years and one of the few ways available to express our gratitude is in the form of this yearly report.

We are currently accommodating a monthly average of 45 children. Since the founding of Copame 1,345 children have stayed for a longer or shorter period at Copame. A permanent home with a family member or temporary shelter was found for all of them. 172 have been adopted officially.

Both bakery and organization were restructured. This long and time consuming exercise had to take place in order to comply with strict labor laws and to avoid labor lawsuits.

The nursery is presently enlarged and renovated to cope in a better way with the necessities of physical and psychological handicapped children.

A special effort was made to incorporate a team of volunteers in our weekly routine, such as computer specialists, lawyers, doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, physical therapists, homework attendants as well as people who monitor and organize various cultural, social, religious and leisure events. Individual accompaniment can only take place with volunteers, who are willing to spend a couple of hours a week at the institution or to attend these children at their offices in town.

Educational projects such as art, music, sports (soccer, basketball and judo) and folkloristic activities were renewed, enlarged or intensified.

Our organization has become a training ground for a variety of students of the local university. They are being accompanied by their professors and are getting involved with the day-to-day challenges of the institution. They also learn and teach at the same time.

All gifts and donations are being acknowledged with a personal “thank you letter” as well as some photos of the children. Please let us know should you not, in one form or the other, have received a sign of our gratitude. We try not to forget, but the wide variety of bureaucratic obligations are occasionally leading to neglect, which is regrettable but seems to be unavoidable at certain times of the year.

Our year-end balance and auditor report concerning the year 2.006 are available to those persons who would like to receive a copy. We are not attaching these for cost reduction reasons. Our certified auditor did not find any irregularities and his recommendations were minimal.

Enclosed please find a photo of a French family, who adopted three brothers and a sister of the same Brazilian family. An authorization was received to publish this photo.

For more detailed information we kindly ask you to consult our web site www.copame.org.br