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Sunshine Foundation was formed in July
2006 to carry out the work of the late Pearl Smith who founded Sunshine
Project International in 1996 to care for abandoned children. |
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Until January 2007 Sunshine was providing
a home to our children aged from newborn to 17 years old in four rented
apartments in Television Street in Luxor. These premises were ideal and
provided an excellent home for the children but as numbers grew we
unfortunately ran out of space. |
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Thanks to the fund-raising efforts of our
sister charity (Sunshine Project UK) the Foundation was able to purchase a
building in Ahmed Esmet Street and renovate it to meet the needs of our ever
growing numbers of children and on 26th January 2007 the majority of our
children moved into their brand new home which had the obvious advantage of
a safe roof terrace with shaded area for them to be able to play "outside"
in safety and benefit from fresh air and sunshine. At present the twelve
oldest boys continue to live in the Television Street site. |
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Pearl's vision of a children's village has
been a priority of Sunshine for a number of years. His Excellency Dr Samir Farag, Governor of
Luxor, has been a huge supporter of Sunshine since he took up office and
thanks to his efforts on our behalf we were able to purchase a piece of land
at an affordable price. Construction of our children's village began in
June 2007 and to meet the future needs of our ever growing family we needed to
build five three-storey and two two-storey buildings. Construction went
ahead on four of the five three-storey accommodation buildings and then
recently we were able to begin with the construction of the two two-storey
buildings which were to accommodate the clubhouse / admin building as well
as the clinic.
Currently the buildings are approaching completion and exterior paintwork
has now been started so it is hoped the new village will be ready for the
children to move in within the next few months. |
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As at 24th August 2008 we have 82 children
in our care and on average we welcome ten new children into our family each
year. The babies are only a few hours old when they arrive and remain our
legal responsibility until they are twenty-one years old. We live very much
as a family and they will remain our emotional and moral responsibility for
life. |
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Between the ages of two and four we
educate the children in our own kindergarden where structured education is
mixed equally with fun and play. Our children then move on to a local
private school where they are educated in English and Arabic. They are also
taught French and German at the ages of 9 and 11 respectively. We believe
that education is the key to each child achieving their true potential and
becoming a valuable member of their community. |
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Sunshine has also established a clinic for
disabled children where our two disabled boys can receive the physiotherapy, speech
and occupational therapy that they need to improve their quality of life.
This much needed facility also provides free treatment and aids to the
poorer members of the local community. The Dean of the Faculty of
Physiotherapy at Cairo University is a regular visitor to our clinic and
provides patient assessment and advice to our clinic manager. The clinic
will also be moving to premises within our new children's village. |
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As well as providing a stable and loving
family home for our children we also provide much needed employment to the
local community. Women in our employment who want, or need to, return to
work after the birth of their children are able to do so. Their children are
welcomed into our family during the working day. |
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We only have sufficient funds for four of
the accommodation buildings of the new village so if you are able to make a donation to help us achieve our
objectives you can pay directly into our bank account (details shown below). |
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