Services | Love At Work

Providing Direct Assistance to Shelters

Shelters provide an invaluable service in protecting, nourishing, educating, and rehabilitating children from the street. Love At Work facilitates several shelters in Mexico and Colombia with financial and practical assistance, including dental volunteers, interns, and material donations. Our goal is to expand our services to other shelters in Latin America. Through partnerships and collaboration we seek to implement best practices in the field of child advocacy. Volunteers mentor and inspire the kids, who are hungry for love and acceptance. As positive role-models their humanitarian leadership is invaluable.

Preventive Education & Peer Mentoring

Arnulfo “Rufo” Reyes is a Professor of Pedagogy (Education) in Mexico City who created a revolutionary approach to rescuing children from crime and generational poverty. At the La Cuesta squatter camp outside Mexico City up to 100 adolescents live in shacks made from shipping pallets. The community lacks running water, electricity, and other services. Most of the kids are raised by single mothers who earn very little. It is this sort of environment that breeds despair and hopelessness that so often force kids into crime and gangs. Dr. Reyes’ Camion Proeduca program delivers hope in the form of life skill training, community development, health services, entertainment, and recreational therapy that bond the kids together. They learn to care for each other as family and to devote limited resources to communal well-being. They are given the keys for breaking the cycle of poverty. The program can be replicated in many other homeless communities. “Rufo” built a soup kitchen and a recreational area for the kids. The cost-benefit ratio of his program is about one to ten. It makes sense to rescue kids before they are incarcerated.

Research & Public Activism

Knowledge is power in helping at-risk children. There are a hundred million street kids worldwide, with forty million in Latin America. The factors that contribute to child abuse, exploitation, and abandonment are complex. They deserve serious attention. Rescuing destitute children requires applied love and understanding. Children are incredibly resilient, but they need guidance, support, and opportunity, otherwise they are vulnerable to molestation, gang activity, and other negative influences. Street kids need positive role models to provide moral guidance. Education is their passport out of poverty. Citizens need to be educated about the conditions that produce street children. They need to be involved in social outreach projects that give all children the help they need to escape from poverty.

Unfortunately, ignorance and indifference prevent most people from taking a more active role in alleviating the suffering of destitute children. We believe that great things happen when people unite behind a good cause. It takes so little to do so much good. Needed are individuals who care deeply about street kids and other victimized children. Needed are advocates who are more than casually interested in the needs of others. Everybody has something to give: TIME, TALENT, or TREASURE. If you have the time to spread this message, or the willingness to come on a service mission, then it is a very worthwhile contribution. Your talents in caring for abused children are invaluable. Student interns are needed at several shelters. And, of course, every dollar given to helping shelters or sponsoring a STREET LIGHT goes a long, long ways.

Director

Neil Millman

Director

Professor Neil Millman is a Geographer who did his undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University and his postgraduate studies at Utah State University. Throughout his life Millman traveled extensively. After nearly thirty years of world travel he has visited sixty-six countries and lived in ten. Millman was always concerned about the plight of the poor, especially childhood poverty. As the result of a deep religious experience he had in 2000 he became an advocate for street children and created the Love At Work Foundation. In dealing with disadvantaged children in particular and the poor in general, Neil Millman has sought solutions to a wide range of problems. As a Social Entrepreneur he seeks ways of lifting children out of poverty by implementing innovative programs in education, health, and business. In addition to his love for travel, Neil Millman is a proficient photographer, videographer, and writer who has chronicled his many adventures. Along with his Mexican-born wife Margarita he travels annually to Mexico and Colombia to carry out humanitarian outreach missions.

Principle Partners

Professor Arnulfo Reyes

CAMION Proeduca Director

CAMION Proeduca's mission is to provide children in very poor communities with Preventive Education; a way of obtaining moral leadership and educational guidance to avoid crime. It also works with poor families by enabling them to use limited resources to foster community therapy.

Padre Jaime

Fundacion CANOA Director

Fundacion CANOA, basin in Tijuana, is a clinic for poor children with cognitive and physical disabilities. This program utilizes community therapy.

Tito Momen

First Generation Project Director

First Generation Project assists other migrants and refugees in adapting to new life in America. Tito is a Muslim convert to the LDS Church and author of: My Name Used to be Muhammad.

Professor Jose Vallejo

Fundacion Renacimiento shelter Director

Fundacion Renacimiento is basde in Mexico City. Professor Vallejo also continues to teach law at the Polytechnic Institute.

Heroes We Support

Jose Betancur

Jose is from Medellin, Colombia. HE created Fundacion Semilla que Crece to help recovering drug addicts and homeless seniors.

Dr. Erendira Trujillo

Dr. Trujillo is Director of Aldeas Infantiles SOS, an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico with 100 kids.

Gordon Carter

Gordon of the Charity Anywhere Foundation in Bountiful, Utah conducts various humanitarian projects in Mexico, Guatemala, and Ecuador.

Gabriel Restreppo

Gabriel himself a former street kid, directs Amigos de la Alegria for 90 boys from destitute families outside of Medellin, Colombia.

Rosaria Moreno

Rosaria was an Olympic runner. As a recovering alcoholic she now directs Casa Por Todos shelter and coaches kids for the annual street olympics.

Gabriel Rodriguez

Gabriel runs an appliance repair shop in Mexico City that employs recovering addicts. He is a great mentor and citizen.

Yolanda Belassario

Yolanda runs Jardin de Amor, a shelter for children of parents too poor to care for them in Medellin, Colombia.

Sally Pamploma

Sally runs a charity that provides nutrition and education to dozens of poor children in Medellin.