European Charity Tour
The European Charity tour is almost at an end with only one more seminar before Thomas Oyarzun travels to Brazil to deliver the money to Mestre Terere.
Recently Oyzarun made his way to Bern, the capital of Switzerland where he organized a seminar with Giuliano Haldimann the head instructor of the Gracie Jiu JItsu team of Bern. There were just about 15 participates at the seminar who raised US $605 for the kids here in the Cantagalo Favela!
After Bern, Mastwo made a quick stop in Annecy France were he was able to gather US $446 in donations bringing the grand total of the tour to US $5,326!
Mastwo will be traveling to Rio at the end of July so there is still time to book more seminars if your interested!
We would like to say a special thanks to Oyarzun for taking the time out of his schedule to make such a big commitment to helping us out here at the project and to everyone that came out to the seminars!
SJJSAF Brasil Open
On May 14th we were able to put 16 sponsored athletes into the SJJSAF Brasil open tournament. Unlike most tournaments were we select several athletes to participate for either the adults or the children’s class due to financial restrictions, we were able to sponsors EVERY SINGLE KID that was consistently training.
At 7A.M. in the morning, 10 kids meet up with Professor Fabricio and Mestre Terere to take the hour-long bus ride out to the tournament.
All of the kids that competed returned home with medals!
After competing Terere treated them to lunch and then they stuck around to watch some of the adult matches. After endless hours of cheering on their teammates, the kids piled back onto the bus with their medals around their necks and fell asleep for the ride home.
The next week in class many of them received strips for their hard work and dedication to training.
We want to thank everyone that sent donations to fund the tournament!
We would also like to thank CJ Murdock and Fernando Reals who purchased TKP patches to sell in South Carolina and New York.
Sales from the patches went to funding this tournament and our snack program for the month of May!
New Management
The Terere Kids Project Blog was started in 2013 by NicoBall, an American living and training alongside Fernando Terere in the Cantagalo favela. For the past 3 years Nico has been collaborating with sponsors and managing the finances and other operational aspects of Terere Kid Project. This July, however, Nico will be returning to the U.S. for 6 months.
In order to continue the work that we have started here at Terere Kids Project, we have decided to formally register the organization as an official NGO. Currently, TKP is registered as Academia Fernando Terere, which is considered a mico-business. Being registered as a small business prohibits us from taking advantage of a lot of government resources offered to non-profits. It's for that reason that we depend entirely on donations for people like you!
Being registered as a formal NGO will have several benefits including:
- Access to funds for snack programs and other educational services like tutors.
- Paid jobs for our employees that are currently working as volunteers.
- Terere Kids Project bank account with tax codes for providing receipts to donors which will help us secure more big company sponsors.
- Discounts on tournaments.
English Program
We have recently had several people reach out to the project with an interest in helping out with our English program. This week Adrienne Long arrived from the United States. Adrienne will be spending 6 months living in the Cantagalo Favela and managing the English program here at Terere Kids Project. We are excited about having our first international volunteer come to dedicate time not just to training Jiu Jitsu, but to helping make a difference here in the community.
