Today, we visited CRAN, the children's home through which we adopted Silas. We got a tour of this lovely home and met with the social worker and director.
Center for Reintegration and Attention of the Child
CRAN's Mission:
CRAN is a non profit institution that seeks to care for children up to seven years of age whose rights have been infringed due to problems related to maltreatment, abandonment or situation of risk, through strategies of integral protection, with the intention of restoring their rights and improving their conditions of life.
If you are interested in seeing and learning more, please check out CRAN's website. There is a video tour that will acquaint you with the children's home, as well as a lot of great information.
www.cran.org
CRAN is nestled on a mountainside in Bogota, about 30 minutes from our hotel. There are many steps to get down to the administration building, where we met with the director and social worker. Along the way, we were met with many lovely children who live at CRAN.
CRAN houses around 80 children who are in protective care due to unsafe home situations. There are four dorms, each designated for certain age groups. We were able to tour them, as well as the school and have many pictures of the lovely little children.
Silas did not stay at CRAN. Rather he stayed in a foster home, which is where CRAN cares for infants awaiting adoption. Even so, we soaked in our time at CRAN, for it is one of the homes that helped to bring Silas to his forever home.
We continued our walk down to the administrative building. On the left and right of this path are the children's dorms. Further to the left are playgrounds.
This is the administrative building where we adopted Silas three weeks ago, and where we met with the director and social worker today.
Maria (social worker) and Ximena (director). They went through Silas's file and shared treasured information with us. Ximena founded CRAN and is an amazing woman, full of wisdom. We could really tell how deeply she loves all the children in her care.
After meeting with Maria and Ximena, we got a tour of the entire children's home, including the dorms, cafeteria, school, doctor's office, etc. The children loved us taking their pictures and our video camera. This truly is a wonderful home to so many children in need. Please check out their website if you are interested in seeing and learning more. There are too many pictures for us to include here and we want to respect the children's privacy.
Lucia kept watching all the children playing and wanted to play so badly. So we gave her a little time to have some fun. She greatly enjoyed the see-saw.
We thank God, our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have been given two Colombian jewels. Colombia will forever be in our hearts. We are so richly blessed.
3 comments:
THis pic of your kiddos has got to hang in the house. It is precious! Awesome sites of CRAN. Thank you for passing along the info as it is dear to our hearts. Miss OUR KIRKLANDS!
I agree. Beautiful picture of your children! miss you guys!
I loved learning more about CRAN and it makes me wish I were younger and could go bring a couple of those dear children home with me! P.S. Keva is right -- The pictue of Lucia and Silas is terrific. So terrific, that I think it also needs to hang at Mimi's. :) We love and miss ya'll! Any idea on return yet?
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