Other Sponsors

ESPAÑOL

GAIA is a Non-Governmanetal Organisation (NGO) that relies on funding from outside sources. There are many ways that people can help GAIA - monetary funding is not the only way. We can see this by the time, effort and skills willingly given by the US Peace Corps and the trainees from AIESEC - all working voluntarily to help GAIA in any way they can. It also goes without saying that we are, of course, tremendously grateful for any monetary sponsorship that we receive and we would again like to thank World Vision for their funding which has, and will, enable us to continue our work in the shelters in Vargas.

However, we would like to take the opportunity here, to thank a number of other sponsors who have helped us in any way they can - however big or small, all support is efficiently put to great use.

When Proctor and Gamble were refurnishing their Caracas offices in 1997, they looked for local NGOs to help. We are extremely grateful to them for supplying GAIA with tables, chairs and drawers for our office which have proved invaluable.

When we initially started our project of "Our Daily Plant" in the schools in Vargas, our work was seen to be exceedingly constructive and beneficial by the government at that time and, as a result, they decided to support our work in the form of small grants. Thank you for such support, without which we would not be as far as we are today. Nevertheless, we hope people continue to distinguish our work from the arena of politics and appreciate it just for the good that it can do.

We would like to thank Lizbeth Navas Aleman, a Venezuelan student in the Development Studies Institute at the University of Sussex in England when the Vargas floods occurred. She was able to raise money from her department, and people therein, to help GAIA. The funds were used to enable us to print our project pamphlets that are now a vital part of our work. We would also like to thank Carlota Perez, a Venezuelan professor in Development, and affilliated with Sussex, for her long support and for putting us in touch with Lizbeth.

Many thanks to Monica Turco, a Venezuelan, who lives and works in Bologne in Italy where she runs the Biodance School of Italy. We are extremely grateful for her generosity in February and March 2000 when, on her trip to Venzuela to instruct Biodance lessons, she gave all the profits from the lessons to GAIA. Thank you so much.

Thank you to Jorge Pachas and Gabriel Fumero, two extrodinary Venezuelan natives living in the US who organised a foundation called "Fundacion Macuto" to help the people of La Guaira.

The foundation's idea is to provide an incentive for students of schools to learn cooperation and organisation. In our schools in La Guaira they did this by giving many much needed pencils and implementing a program whereby students could give them to other people, paint, and learn to account how many people needed and wanted etc. We were also able to use the some of the pencils with the people in the shelters in Vargas.

REDSOC

REDSOC is a network of over 50 Venezuelan organisations of social development, mostly NGO's, and of which GAIA is a member. We are all in regular contact and usually hold a conference once a month. REDSOC is more a facilitator for the exchange of information than a distributor of funds, however they also managed to give us a small amount of money with which we were able to buy a set of toolboxes which have proved essential for our workshops that we run. Thank you for this, and for all your support and information over the past years.

REDARA is a network of Venezuelan NGOs that was founded on the wave of environmental movements in the 1980s. One of it's most important accomplishments has been to compile a directory of Venezuelan non-profit environmental organisations. We would like to thank them for including GAIA in this directory, which, at present, holds 422 organisations.

Thank you again to CANTV for continuing to publish our articles on their website. We are extremely grateful for allowing us to take advantage of the broad audience that you reach. We believe our work is relevant and can be helpful to all people.

Thank you to the Finnish Embassy in Caracas for providing us with funds that will enable us to carry out our project on agrifam and recycling for the communities of Pericoco, La Encantada and Tibroncito over the coming months. Thank you also to Jason Recordon, our AIESEC trainee for establishing a contact with the embassy.

There are a host of other, more personal, friends of GAIA who we would like to thank for their time, dedication, skills and generosity that they have continually given to us over the past years. We are exceedingly grateful for your support, without which, much of GAIA's work would have been drastically stunted.