CEPIA asociacion in Tamarindo, Costa Rica

CEPIA (Culture, Education and Psychology for Infants and Adolescents) is a non-profit organization in Costa Rica aimed at children and adolescents from poor backgrounds.

Children
These are the children of Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Many children in the villages in Guanacaste have no access to cultural and recreative activities; schools are poorly equipped and have little staff. The children often live in poor and difficult family situations and need psychological support. Association CEPIA wants to help these children through a center that offers free cultural and educational activities, psychological support as well as through collaborations with local schools and many organizations.

CEPIA Programs
CEPIA seeks to improve cultural development, educational and market opportunities, physical and mental health, social cohesion and participation, of the young generation with poor backgrounds in Costa Rica, though the following programs:

Extracurricular Activities
-classes taught by volunteers in the villages such as football, yoga, swimming, horseback riding; artistic classes such as handicraft, theater, singing, etc. The aim is to stimulate children's development and interests as well as work on their physical health.

Psychological Support and Family Counseling
-for children who were reported by the school, parents or others. According to their needs, these children and their parents get therapy or education counseling.

Women’s Group
-CEPIA invites women from the community to a weekly women’s group to discuss topics such as empowerment, physical and mental help, raising children and self-esteem.

Introduction to the Labor Market
-with the help of community members, volunteers, the police force, etc, CEPIA looks for truant adolescents. We offer them to learn a job in a working environment (kitchen, sailing, bakery, etc.).

Reinforcement of the Schools
-we do projects in common, such as cleaning up villages, and helping out in case of lack of staff, motivation of teachers and achieve funding to improve the infrastructure.

Informative events in the Villages
-movie nights, meetings with the objective of asking collaboration in CEPIA’s activities.

Poverty Reduction
-by gathering information on families in the region, distribution of materials: such as clothing, kitchen utensils, etc to low income families in the villages. We also provide information and guidelines on ways available in Costa Rica to get help. We are also implementing a project “adopt a family”.

Environmental Education
-to create a committee to raise environmental awareness and implement the Blue Flag program in every school.

Library
-a library is available in the CEPIA office in Huacas, containing books for children, information for teachers and books for adults.

Donations
Donations in Costa Rica to CEPIA are tax-deductible. We provide invoices and an official letter from the tax-office. Please contact us for the necessary documents.

For donations in Costa Rica (in dollars):
Banco de Costa Rica: 325-1354-4 (cuenta corriente en US$)
Swiftcode: BCRICRSJ

Banco Nacional: 200–2-145-3257-5 (cuenta de ahorro en US$)
Swiftcode: BNCRCRSJ

Please mention your name, or alternatively mention “donation” if you wish to remain anonymous.

For donations in Belgium (in euros):
KBC: 435-8034101-59
DMOS-Comide,
Avenue Leopold II 195
1080 Brussels

DMOS-Comide (Belgium) supports the project in Guanacaste. Donations over 30 euros made through DMOS are tax-deductible, please mention clearly GUANACASTE COSTA RICA - ATTESTATION SVP

You donate:	CEPIA can:
$20	Buy 8 books or sports material for 5 children, which contributes to either the goal of improving cultural and educational development through stimulating reading or improving physical health through sports.
$50	Fuel the bus for a week, so children can be picked up and brought to the center to take part in the activities.
$500	Rent the center for a month: all activities can take place in the center and children have a safe and familiar place to turn to.
$2000	Pays the insurance of all children for a year.
$10000	Keep up activities in the center and in the villages and cover CEPIA's administrative and logistical expenses for a complete month.

For more information visit http://www.cepiacostarica.org
Email: contact@asociacioncepia.org
Phone: (506) 2653-8533 / Fax: (506) 2653-8365