The Banneux School and meal center is located in the Aparicio Saravia neighborhood. It provides education and food to children ages 6-11 in one of the poorest sectors of Montevideo. The institution offers complete primary education in two shifts (morning and afternoon) and pre-school to 475 children, as well as three meals a day for almost all the students. Reaching U supports the Banneux School in its nutritional program for schoolchildren ("Growing up healthy") and its special education program ("Learning through play"). We have also collaborated on significant infrastructure investments.

The Banneux School is at the very heart of one of the poorest areas in Montevideo. People here can't afford to live close to the center of town or have recently migrated from the countryside, and eke out a precarious existence, lacking the most basic of health and comfort services. The level of marginalization is so great that danger and violence are rife, and the Montevideo police consider it a "red" or high-crime area.

In this tough situation, children suffer the most, and their opportunities to thrive and grow are severely stunted. Because of lack of resources, the children's diet at home is inadequate and sometimes they have nothing to eat at all. In response to this critical situation, the school implemented the "Growing Up Healthy" project which offers three meals: breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack. The concrete goal of the project is to offer a balanced diet, contributing to healthy growth of the children so that they can reach their full potential.

The second project funded by Reaching U, called "Learning Through Play," is directed at children whose ability to learn is affected by their critical living conditions, especially with perceptual development, language, and thinking. Their impoverished environment lacks the stimuli for this development. Absence of toys, absence of adults to guide their play, and rare physical contact with peers often cause conceptual difficulties and make it hard for children to perceive and remember objects. The project consists of a program to stimulate children with learning difficulties and has a multidisciplinary team of specialists (specialized teachers, an educational psychologist, a social worker, and a specialist in psycho-motor skills development). This team diagnoses learning difficulties and cares for the children in a stimulation group that meets three times a week. This program is based on a series of stimulation sessions using different strategies that include games, reading, motor activities, and concentration exercises. The work requires supplies and materials that are fully funded by Reaching U. The concrete goal of this project, which Reaching U is financing, is to strengthen the program with materials for stimulating children with learning difficulties, improving the quality of teaching and promoting educational equality.