We are a small organization with big dreams. In addition to our volunteers, we also receive temporary support from psychology students, foreign volunteers and former children of the project.
Mery Project Manager
The active and sociable Mery from Ushpa Ushpa coordinates CADSE and its daily work. How she came to it and what else Mery achieves in life you can read here.
Nelson Chairman
Besides art and culture, Nelson loves one thing above all: the people of his district Ushpa Ushpa. He has been working as the official representative of CADSE for four years now. You can read more about Nelson's work and his free time here.
Gual Founding member
Gual would like to change the whole world, but he also captures it in a small way. He supports CADSE wherever he can. You can find more about his world view here.
Fernando Volunteer
Fernando, who is actually only called Fer by everyone, has been an integral part of CADSE since its foundation. You can read here why exactly he is a role model for all the children of the village.
Erika Volunteer
Erika's main interest is one thing: sport. She teaches our children away from the classroom how to interact and support each other. You can read here why she is so popular with our children.
Aquisito Funding
Former volunteers wanted to bring the joy of life and hope of Ushpa Ushpa to the world. For this purpose they founded the association "Aquisito" in Germany, which supports CADSE wherever it can. More about their work can be found here .
Mery Torrico Rojas
Mery is the heart and soul of CADSE. Since she initiated the foundation of the association together with friends in 2016, she has been working with an incredible energy for a better future for the children. She invests her free time in coordinating the volunteers, organizing the daily routine and supporting children in particularly difficult situations.
Mery earns her living as an English teacher at a school in the region and she also finds time for her two children. If there is still a small part of the day left over, she loves to bake Rollos de Queso, which not only German volunteers rave about.
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Luis Nelson Villarroel
Nelson represents the association to the outside world. He coordinates banking transactions, stands up for CADSE and the town and takes care of all the formalities. As a social worker, he supports various projects in the south of Cochabamba, where he likes to work with young people to realize new ideas. For example he is enthusiastic about graffiti art, music and different dances. Nelson could also spend hours talking about philosophers, artists and writers to discuss the latest achievements of technology in the next moment.
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Gualberto Rodriguez
Gual has always been concerned with the question of how one could and should create a better future. With his studies in sociology, he tried to better understand human action and to develop a transforming method from this. Since, as he also had to realize at some point, the world cannot be changed just like that, he wanted to start improving it a little in his spare time. Together with Mery and Nelson he founded the CADSE association and helps as much as he can with the implementation.
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Fernando Torrico
Fernando's story begins years before CADSE was founded. As a child he visited a day center in Ushpa Ushpa where Mery and Nelson were working at the time. Thanks to their support he managed to graduate from school and even to start an engineering degree. After this success story there was no question that he wanted to give something back. Right at the beginning of the foundation of CADSE he volunteered to help. Today he is an integral part of our project and he spends almost all of his free time with the children alongside his studies. Here he is not only there as a role model for everyone, he has made it his special task to work with the boys, they often have little male educational experience. Besides, Fernando loves playing volleyball, where he can look over his Bolivian teammates with his impressive 1.73.
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Erika Machaca
Erika was also able to benefit as a child from the support of Mery and Nelson. And she also made it to the state university in Cochabamba. With her great passion for sport, she now wants to create a better future for the children. From the experience we have gained with her since the beginning of CADSE, we have been able to see that many children benefit incredibly from the offer. They learn a sense of community, consideration and discipline in a fun way. Today Erika is an integral part of our team and she is the favourite caregiver of some of the children.
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Aquisito
During the foundation of CADSE and also afterwards German volunteers helped with the daily work. However, they were not too happy with the situation of being practically powerless in Germany and hardly being able to read help. For this reason they founded the association "Aquisito" in spring 2020, which enables them to officially receive donations and helping hands. Click here to go to the website of Aquisito, where you can find more about their work and what they have already achieved.
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