SAP, a global leader in business software, and SAP’s affiliate, United Vars, wanted to work with KhA again after our earlier partnership proved successful with projects in Cambodia and Tanzania. In 2019, SAP and United Vars sponsored a project in Cambodia, bringing safe drinking water, toilets, hand washing stations, and training in sanitation and hygiene to three large schools. Then two projects in Tanzania in 2020, where a new school was built to provide education to 250 students, and an orphanage was constructed that gave 60 orphans a new home.

In 2021, SAP, United Vars and KhA partnered again for a project in Argentina. The project, “Giving Perspectives – Strengthening Support,” works in coordination with the Santa Maria de La Armonia, a music school founded in 2004 by Ulrike Flemming from Munich, Germany. Many of the 150 children who attend Santa Maria de La Armonia, brought to the school by bus, come from extreme poverty. At the school, where nuns called Servidoras are the primary educators, much more than just education in music is provided. Students also receive food, access to toilets and hand washing stations, and a good foundation for learning in a highly structured, rule-based environment. Santa Maria de La Armonia is a well-run school that delivers a high-quality program to its students, so KhA needed to do nothing in this regard. However, the living environment many of Santa Maria de La Armonia’s students came from required attention. That’s where the Giving Perspectives – Strengthening Support (GPSS) project comes into play.

Many of the students’ homes are dangerous places to be. Roofs leak, few homes have running water, there is limited insulation to protect from the cold winters, and in the homes that have electricity (many do not), electric wires are often exposed and hazardous. In addition, among many of the student’s parents, depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction are widespread. In short, not a suitable living situation for any human being. To give the children and their families a chance at a better today and future, KhA, SAP and United Vars decided to take action. In coordination with Santa Maria de La Armonia, we would build new homes for the 18 most disadvantaged students and their families.

First, as part of the GPSS, the Servidoras screened all the students and identified those who most needed assistance. Then the Servidoras and KhA developed a plan to address the needs of these 18 students and their families (82 human beings)based on a € 60,000 budget. When all the required resources were in place, the building of the new homes started. Due to COVID-19, work on the GPSS has been slow but continuous, and it goes on today.

Date: April 2021