In 2014, when we began developing the idea of creating a brand from scratch, we were very clear that all our products had to be ecological and allocate part of the sales to a social purpose.
We started looking for a social project in which the people involved were friendly, serious, long-term and who wanted to collaborate with Parafina. Finally, we chose the School Scholarships project in Paraguay and we are very proud to continue working side by side with this social project 6 years later.
I started looking for a social project to which I could donate with each sale of glasses, with the aim that the project would be sustainable over time, have a proven track record and be close enough for us to have direct contact with them. With these characteristics, we ruled out all the large NGOs since it would be very difficult to maintain direct and continuous contact. We were considering projects related to the world of optics, since we were dedicated to selling recycled sunglasses and reading glasses, but we didn't find any. We looked for projects related to education in Spain and we didn't like any of them either. Initially we wanted it to be in Spain because it was close, but finally we decided that it was more important that the social project excited us more than being close.
Since 2009, I have been collaborating with a social project in Paraguay that my cousin Tatiana started in 2006. The project is carried out in a small school of the LaSalle Brothers on the outskirts of Asunción (Paraguay). The school is located in the northern swamp of Asunción in the Fátima neighborhood. A flood zone where there are few resources and high poverty rates. Most of the houses are precarious dwellings built on public land (land without title deeds) on the flood-prone banks of the Paraguay River as it passes through Asunción. The vast majority of families in the neighborhood have a very poor economic situation which does not allow them to dedicate many resources to the education of their children. The level of education in Paraguay is a big problem since in world rankings such as PISA-D it is in the second to last place in all of America, only behind Haiti.
My cousin, while volunteering at the school, started giving scholarships to children from the most needy families with the help of family and friends. In the neighborhood there are many families living in total poverty (23.5% of the Paraguayan population in 2019 subsisted on less than 80 EUR per month). In addition, these families usually have many children. This situation means that if they are able to send one of their children to school, they can only do so with the eldest one or the two eldest. Additionally, the flooding with the recurrent flooding of the Paraguay River and the lack of income due to the closure of the nearby landfills where they sorted garbage in 2014-15 when we started selling Parafina glasses made collaboration with this project very necessary.
I told my partners about the project and we said it was perfect. Education is a great long-term commitment to the development of a society, we could promote values such as recycling or ecology, which are typical of Parafina. I had direct contact with the project, there was a great need for help and the school directors were happy to collaborate with everything we needed.
The scholarships of our social project include the payment of the annual registration fee, the monthly fees and the necessary supplies during the year (books, notebooks, etc.). The LaSalle school in Fátima is a state-subsidised school. In Paraguay, education is theoretically free, but there are not enough places in public schools, so families have to look for options such as state-subsidised schools. In state-subsidised schools, the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) finances the teachers' salaries, but does not cover any other expenses of the school. The school has to charge the students for all administrative expenses, auxiliary staff (cleaning, security, etc.), school materials and other expenses for its correct operation. As I have explained, the families in the neighbourhood do not have sufficient resources to pay for these expenses for the education of their children (around 90 euros per year).
The sales of Parafina glasses during 2015 allowed us to start the project with 16 children receiving scholarships. It was a great joy to be able to collaborate with such a beautiful project and support the education of these children. With this contribution we fulfilled one of the main objectives that we set ourselves in the development of Parafina as a brand: that 5% of the net sales of Parafina glasses would contribute to a social purpose. I would like to personally thank all the teachers, the management of the School and especially Professor Ninfa and Brother Arsenio for their support and help in the development of the Parafina Social Project. It is wonderful to see the happy children at the School and to think that they will be able to have a better future... their smile in this video is worth more than a thousand words. Thank you also to all of you who buy Parafina glasses, as your purchases are the basis for the development of this project.
