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Framed photos of the 19-year-old Núñez and the rest of his family, who are poor, sit in the home of Alfredo and Liliana Menegaz, the young man's ”padrinos” or godparents, in Rome. This kind of ”long-distance adoption” or sponsorship of Paraguayan children by Italian families began in 1990, on the initiative of Italian Catholic priest Atilio Cordioli, who was active as a missionary in Paraguay for more than 35 years, and Gianni Elsner, who hosts a talk radio show in Rome. In 1990, Elsner dedicated one of his programmes to discussing the difficulties faced by children in gaining access to and completing school in Paraguay, a country that he had visited several times. He invited Cordioli to the show that day. Over the airwaves, the two launched a campaign to collect money to build a school in Acahay, a town located 100 km from the capital, where ”there were no schools or adequate infrastructure”, Cordioli told IPS. The funds donated by the public and by civil society groups in Italy helped build the first school in Acahay, which was named Ciudad de Roma (City of Rome), he said. After that, one thing led to another, and the idea emerged to get sponsors in Italy to 'adopt' local children from poor families. ”In 1990, we arranged the first 50 'adoptions',” said the priest. The project is run by La Misión, a non-governmental foundation set up in Paraguay, in which missionaries and Italian and Paraguayan volunteers participate. Today, some 2,600 families in Italy sponsor children in Paraguay, donating 200 euros (259 dollars) a year to ensure that their ”godchildren” are adequately clothed and receive school and sports materials, and at least one square meal a day. The goal is for each fostered child to complete primary school. With the funds raised by the project, new schools have been built, as well, while more than 45 schools have also been refurbished in the towns of Carapeguá, Acahay and Pilar in southern Paraguay. The once-rundown buildings now have new classrooms, new furniture, sanitation and libraries. ”This way, children who have not been sponsored also benefit, and they are given teaching materials as well,” said Cordioli. ”Many of the 'godparents' continue to send money for the children they sponsored to complete secondary school, and even go on to the university. Reaching tertiary education is the big challenge, and 150 of our youngsters have already done so,” Catholic nun Fabiola Camacho told IPS. ”Today we have nearly 3,000 sponsored children who receive the necessary means to enable them to receive an education. That might sound like a small number, but it is significant if you consider the reality of a country that offers few opportunities,” said Camacho. More than two million of Paraguay's 5.8 million people scrape by on less than a dollar a day, and at least three of every 10 children under the age of 14 work. ”In Asunción you frequently see children washing windshields or doing acrobatic tricks in the street (to earn a few coins), and many of those who live in the countryside work alongside their parents,” said Camacho. Only seven of every 100 children who enrol in primary school make it to high school, while university is not even a distant dream for the overwhelming majority. ”Child labour, the long distances separating children's homes from schools, especially in the countryside, a lack of funds, and health problems are some of the causes of the high school drop-out rates,” said the nun. According to the official census, 39.8 percent of Paraguayans over 15 have less than two years of schooling, which puts them in the category of the ”fu nctionally illiterate”. Illiteracy stands at 10.9 percent in the capital, 20 percent in the rest of the country's urban areas, and nearly 40 percent in rural areas. Besides the exclusion from the educational system caused by poverty and a lack of schools and other infrastructure, many rural families migrate constantly from one community to another, following the harvests in search of seasonal work, Cordioli explained. ”Education is a state responsibility, but unfortunately in Paraguay, the political will to meet the minimum goals is lacking. One clear demonstration of this is that the government once again cut the education and health budgets in 2004 to increase spending in other areas, like defence,” said Cordioli. ”Those who are in power prefer to see the vicious cycle of poverty repeat itself,” he added. Paraguay earmarks 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to education, far below the seven percent recommended by United Nations agencies and other international bodies. In July 2004, La Misión began to build the University of Carapeguá, a branch of the Catholic University in Asunción, which has no building of its own and has operated for the past 10 years during the evening shift in the Escuela Media Redentorista, a local religious school. In 1992, Menegaz sent his daughter to Paraguay, along with a group of other donors and sponsors, to see for themselves where their money was going. ”It put me at ease to know where the funds raised by the foundation are invested. Now we have seen for ourselves what can be achieved,” Menegaz remarked to IPS. In addition, every year three of the project's organisers visit Italy to give a detailed report to the sponsor families. Claudio Donati, another sponsor, said ”This work is profoundly satisfying, and is a way to contribute to making it possible for all children and young people to exercise their rights.” Donati described the project as ”exemplary and transparent”. But he noted that while ”it improves the situation of many children, it does not resolve Paraguay's problems in the area of education, which have structural causes.” A report on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indicates that it is possible for Paraguay to achieve universal basic education by 2015, but that the country is unlikely to cut extreme poverty and hunger in half by that target date. These two goals form part of the MDGs, which were adopted at a U.N. summit in September 2000 as a global platform to put an end to hunger and inequality by setting clear targets with a 2015 deadline. Countries cannot pull out of poverty without education and without the necessary funding, ”something that Latin America is crying out for,” said Cordioli. UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund, estimates that between 56 and 59 percent of children in Latin America and the Caribbean live in poverty.