HOGAR DE CRISTO

Hogar de Cristo from Chile was founded in 1944, when the first programme to house homeless adults was created, as a response that was not only necessary but above all innovative for the time. It has become one of the largest non-profit organisations in the country with more than 250 social programmes, more than 2,800 workers, providing specialised social care to nearly 34,000 people directly in nurseries and kindergartens, educational reintegration schools, therapeutic programmes for people with problematic alcohol and other drug use, programmes for the elderly, people with mental disabilities, vulnerable children, street children and work inclusion programmes. The pillars of social action are the inclusion of people from a rights perspective, advocacy in public policies, collaboration with other actors in society (public and private) and sustainability.

In the area of collaboration, it is worth highlighting the annual work of more than 2,500 individual volunteers who put their motivation for greater social justice to work and the annual link with Higher Education Centres has allowed the participation in the practical training stage of 2,000 students each year from different professional and technical careers.
In the field of action with the theme of mental disability, it has worked on the development and implementation of different social programmes to promote the social inclusion of adults with mental disabilities, in situations of poverty and social exclusion in different regions of the country, which means that it has about 50 social programmes that seek to accompany and support the social inclusion of more than 1,300 people in the individual, family, community, educational, labour and/or cultural spheres, considering the technical support and reasonable adjustments to achieve the greatest possible autonomy and the full exercise of their fundamental rights. In the field of culture and arts, we have carried out
projects such as: Theatre of Life (more than 10 years of experience), Literary Workshops, Literary Competitions with different versions for more than 5 years (“Vuelen Plumas” in its last version), being an organisation with a track record, experience and expertise in social inclusion projects.