Fundación Alborada (Dawn Foundation)

In 1987, Ernesto Müller, a high school teacher, founded Alborada. He wanted to create a shelter for street kids, something more human than the state’s institutions, and began with 5 kids in Mar de Plata (several hours from Buenos Aires).

Today Alborada serves some 50 boys (7-21 years old) in two shelters in Buenos Aires. The program emphasizes vocational training in a creative way: when someone donates an old house to Alborada, the kids learn to build new walls and ceilings, plumbing, electricity, and furniture. The kids learn construction and carpentry, and later, have a place to live.

Alborada does not do outreach in the streets. Some kids come from the state system, others are ordered by a judge, and others come on their own, recommended by a friend. Alborada has learned that the only kids who are successful are those who want to be there, so they try to avoid court-ordered kids. If a kid comes from the state system, Sr. Müller goes to the jail or courthouse to get him, so that he knows he is welcomed.

Contracts with the state, in the form of scholarships for each child, pay the costs of the program, but not well. Donations and the sale of furniture cover unexpected expenses. Fortunately, the local government has been in the vanguard of homeless youth services, and is willing to finance creative and unorthodox programs.

Sr. Müller lives in the shelter with the kids; staff also included mentors, carpentry and construction teachers, social workers, psycholgists, and an administrator. On another site, Alborada has a facility to treat drug addicts.

Fundación Alborada
President Ernesto Muller
Joaquín de González 4753
Devoto, Capital Federal, Argentina

0054 11 45022773

alborada@argentina.com
fundacionalborada@hotmail.com (the administrator is Cecilia)