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How
we work, PERU |
Poverty
Eradication |
How
we work, QUITO |
LIMA
class in progress |
Our
abandoned Kids |
| We are apt to propose what some
of us consider to be a workable solution for a good many if
not most of Latin America´s street children. First let
us narrow down the category of at-risk children for whom this
solution is deemed appropriate, not to confuse them with suffering
children for whom a creative solution must still be developed.
Not for slaves or addicts: We do not suggest that this solution
will be effective in relieving the suffering of the hundreds
of millions of children abducted by criminals or sold by their
parents into slavery and a life of child labour, likewise we
feel it is unlikely to help street children whose lives are
so overcome by substance abuse, prostitution or a criminal lifestyle
that they are beyond the possibility of being influenced by
newly reformed parents.. Part of our mission statement reads
(and has done for several years): "Children have the right to
be fed and clothed and sheltered and educated by their parents.
When parents are unable or refuse to do this then society must
intervene. Bruce Organization exists to feed, clothe and educate
children who have been let down by their parents." Sounds great,
and we still stand by it - as far as it goes. What is assumed
when 'society intervenes' is the old plethora of paternalistic
solutions: shelters, orphanages, refuges, soup kitchens, street
kids projects. Yes yes we too have done all these. But we now
wonder if they are the best first line of action for helping
children who have been let down by their parents. It is generally
accepted that the best place for children is in their own homes
with their natural families. But what everyone seems to have
given up on is that failed families even single parent families
can become functional again. WHAT A MISTAKE! This is the point
at which we want to break eggs, step on toes and explode the
myth that failed parents cannot be rehabilitated, and be so
on a scale grand enough to be considered the solution of choice
for solving the street children phenomenon. We can prove that
parents who have abandoned, neglected, abused or driven away
their children can change. Can be inspired to re-embrace their
children and begin again, or for the first time to discharge
their parental responsibilities. Not just one or two special
cases; dozens, soon hundreds. We hope for enough funding and
trained staff to be able to make this thousands of cases. And,
as I say, we can already demonstrate that this is a workable
solution - at least in the Latin and indigenous societies where
we have tested it so far.. Here follows a brief explanation
of how our experiment has worked. Some points require a certain
level of understanding on your part, such as the fact that we
work almost exclusively with mothers. For the rest we will invite
you to visit our website which represents this project. First
of all let us do some more narrowing down. Some mothers who
are unlikely to benefit from this programme, and therefore will
be unable to save their street children: substance addicted
or mentally ill mothers are unlikely to be accepted into this
programme. But this still leaves the vast majority of the mothers
of ordinary street children as candidates for this successful
approach to reversing the ´street kids phenomenon´. A little
background. If you are on this page you probably already know
that for some years we have been finding children who are not
in school and getting them educated. These are street kids -
abandoned or semi abandoned. They are extremely poor. If they
have a parent (mother) she is probably not a horrible mother,
she is simply utterly impoverished, has nothing to give her
children. They have already missed a year and sometimes several
years of education: no school will have them if they try to
get in - unable to pass the entrance exam. We work with these
children to bring them up to the level of their peers, then
register and sponsor them in state schools. Once enrolled we
continue to sponsor them for the following two years. At the
same time we work with their mothers encouraging them to take
over the responsibility of buying uniforms, paying registration
fees, class materials, transport and events fees for their children.
But for the mothers who have nothing, this represents an unrealistic
plan. [Leaving us to sponsor some children a lot longer than
we had intended; though it also must be said we have had some
success in getting certain school authorities to grant variance.]
We have experience in micro enterprise projects, having started
our fist micro finance scheme in the early 70s. Over time we
have improved on our original faulty design by adapting the
masterful example set by Mohammed Yunus and his Grameen Bank.
And while micro finance would seem one method of helping our
mothers to get into a position to support their children; this
would not necessarily assure that our mothers will thereby become
good parents. So we started a pilot project in 2003, and have
been experimenting with different ways of harnessing the allure
of financial independence with the joys and responsibilities
of successful parenting . And we can now announce that we have
cracked it; developed a method which achieves the goals we set.
The secret is instead of lending money to the mothers we invest
in them, become their partner. This both captures their enthusiastic
attention and also permits us to work closely with them for
at least fourteen months. The art is that in order to qualify
to become our partner mothers must seriously apply themselves
to achieving a certain level of discipline, hygiene, work ethic
and most of all parental responsibility. [We have Psychologists,
Social workers and business consultants helping them.] Bingo.
This approach is working. Already successful mothers go out
and recruit more mothers, and experienced mothers sponsor and
train recruited mothers. Already mothers with leadership skills
have risen to community director. They have their own weekly
meetings, compose and sing their own theme songs, share stories
and testimonies of what they are experiencing, how they are
succeeding. And they are succeeding. Before, for every child
we were able to recruit to our shanty schools there were several
we knew about but we failed to recruit them. Either their parents
hid them when we came around because they needed them to work
or else the children were so conditioned to street life that
the notion of education held no interest for them. Now mothers
are finding their own children, sending them to our schools,
bringing them in from the streets. Come see: www.arribaya.com/index.html
Footnote: Objectivity demands we recognise that there are many
children for whom no family solution is available and we salute
the fine charities who are attending to their needs. We also
are not suggesting here that we will be closing our schools
for street children any time soon - certainly not before Governments
in the countries where we work duplicate our programme (or implement
one with similar effectiveness) as part of their national approach
to education. What we are attempting here is to point out what
we see as the error of NGOs and most well-intentioned outsiders
to paternalistically intervene directly with at-risk children
rather than considering first whether there might be an easier,
faster and more permanent solution by addressing these children's
needs through the medium of their own parents.. . |
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| Medical
Volunteering |
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| Bruce
Kids, CUSCO |
Our
mission is to help as many of the poorest children in the third world
as we can to receive as good an education as their circumstances permit.
To do all we can to befriend them, motivate them to want to get educated,
to help with their nutritional, medical, psychological, clothing and
family well-being: and finally to get them into as good an educational
institution as we can find for them. To fulfill this mission we are
prepared to feed, clothe, teach, nurture, pay for some of their school
costs and work with their families to make certain they have as stable
a home environment as possible in order to apply themselves to learning.
In the places we work many of the poorest children have only a single
parent at home, an abandoned mother. Our mission includes working
to improve the prospects and quality of life of abandoned mothers.
.
Bruce & Ana
Tere 2007
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