Questions people ask us.

No. Most children who need help in Latin America are not orphans and are not in orphanages: 74 to 93% of children living with neither parent have both parents alive, and they live at home with relatives. Awesomage is designed around those families: a school at the centre of a community, support for the carers, and a small safe harbour for the nights a child cannot go home.

Children who live with grandparents or other relatives because their parents migrated, separated or could not cope, and the carers raising them. About 11 million children in Latin America live with neither parent.

Opening a free after-school club in El Salvador. Children go to their normal school in the day; afterwards, the ones with nowhere safe to be come to the club until a carer can collect them. They eat, play and learn, all in Spanish.

In El Salvador. We never publish the exact location of any place where children are cared for. If you would like to visit, write to us and we will arrange it.

Because for every child in an institution there are about 45 to 80 at home with family. Institutions reach the smallest part of the need, and a child usually does better at home with support. The safe harbour exists only for the nights home is not safe, with a plan to go back from the first night.

Today, we pay for the first team ourselves while we raise the rest. In the long run we want every Awesomage to fund itself, most likely with a school where fees cover the operation and free places are the mission. That is unproven, and we publish the options and the strongest objection to each.

In Peru, good care cost about $375 per child per month. Whatever funds an Awesomage has to meet that.

Safeguarding policy, background checks and training come before the first child arrives. We never publish locations or children’s faces without written family consent, and we are recruiting a safeguarding lead senior enough to stop us.

Pick what fits: a role, a conversation, a loan of modular classrooms, money, or a skill like film-making. The Get involved page lists exactly what we need.