WHERE 70 USED TO EAT, 100
NOW EAT
With
the beginning of the new school year in San José Child Development Community
Center in Jardines de San Juan Ajusco, Mexico City, we have begun a campaign to
fill the classrooms of the center to maximum capacity. We are walking down each
one of the streets in the neighborhood in search of children younger than six
years old who are not using the center.
We want to know who is not coming, and make it possible for them to
benefit from the services that our project offers for complete development in
early childhood.
In
this process of going from house to house, we arrived at the home of Elvira, a skinny
woman of slight stature and tan skin with one of those special smiles that
makes others smile. Her precarious home has a canvas roof already quite rotted
by the rain and stinging sun found at these high altitudes. The walls are made of
unfinished wood and an entirely dirt floor. Like the majority of homes of this haphazard
neighborhood settlement, they don’t have electricity, potable water or a sewer
system. Now that the season of cold and constant rains is beginning, they have
to look for a way to protect themselves. They stay warm with a wood fire inside
of the house and they use a bucket to collect the water from the leaks in the
roof in order to wash themselves.
Elvira
lives with her spouse and four year old son, Emilio. Emilio is always with his mother, who goes to
work washing dishes in the home of a woman of the same neighborhood. The boy doesn't go to any sort of school,
center or daycare. In our conversation
with Elvira, we realized that the reason she doesn’t take her child to the
center is because of fear that one day Emilio will be kidnapped .
At
the beginning of our visit, Elvira appeared to be full of the doubts and
anxieties of a mother worried about being separated from her child during the
day in what can sometimes be a dangerous neighborhood. And because of this, she did not want to
accept the invitation to bring Emilio to the San José Center so that he could enjoy
the benefits of a preschool education along with the child nutrition program. But, in the end, she told us that she wanted
the best for her child and that she will fight so that Emilio has the best
opportunities possible for a quality of life that is better than the one they
are presently living.
Over
a two month period we have managed to invite Emilio along with other boys and
girls of the neighborhood around the San José center who are now receiving
education, food, and psychological attention, establishing the foundations for
their future as persons and members of their society.
At
the end of the past year, there was an average of 70 children attending the San
José Center. Now with the new campaign, we have already reached 99 students
enrolled for the 2014-2015 year. We have
learned that in these social conditions, it is not enough to just open the
doors so that these children can benefit from our project. It is necessary to go door to door in order
to invite them and help the parents to understand the benefits for their
children’s education, nutrition, and development.
As
long as there are still families like that of Elvira and Emilio who have to
live in such unhealthy and dangerous conditions, we will continue
promoting educational development and
improving the quality of life for families who most need it in Jardines de San
Juan Ajusco.
Yomaira Cordero and Fany Arguello
No comments:
Post a Comment