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Bruce Peru commented about VOLUNTEER PERU, On Tuesday April 26th, 2005 07:00:00 AM
Dear Andy,
You got there before I had a chance (or perhaps I was being slow) in announcing your arrival.
It is Bruce here, and I am still in Trujillo - as anounced in an earlier comment. It is I, not Darren, who am 63. Buying school uniforms represents only a tiny part of our service to really poor children - and we do spend our time in the barrios and out of town: not in public schools. Pity you didn't go with the volunteers to where we work - there you would have encountered the lice and smelly bodies. But you would apparently rather look at where the volunteers live (which has to be in a safe part of town), and only imagine what they must be doing - in fact each morning they go to the dangerous part of town to deal with the children who live where tourists don't get to.
Here's an explanation I had to give to someone the other day (someone we are trying to get furniture from for our shanty class rooms), someone who - like you - dismissed what we do because he had never been and was unwilling to go to where we actually do our work:
"Dear Sir,
Thank you for your reply, and especially for asking your Trujillo director to assess our needs in Trujillo. We look forward to our next contact with him. We would also like to ask you to revisit the subject of possibly donating furniture to our Lima and Cusco satellite centres.
Thank you too for pointing out the deficiency in our web site, if it left you with the impression you express in your last email.
Permit me to try to clarify our work and the need for it. -
Our main activity is to go into the poorest communities and there locate children of school age who are not enrolled in school. This is the easy part, because there are lots of them.
..Why?
- Most common reason is extreme poverty. Even though Peru's schools are "free", there is still the cost of registration, uniforms, transport, school materials and events fees = S/380 a year (national average); and for a family with virtually no income this is too much: so their children do not get enrolled in school.
- Second most common reason is the low priority some parents place on education. Illiterate parents, recently migrated from the countryside, are concerned with shelter and food. And when they end up in a community where most of their neighbours are from the same background and in the same condition as they: there is no peer pressure to get their children educated. And if their childrens' births are unregistered, then the law which requires all children to attend school does not apply to their children: because in the eyes of the state their children do not exist.
- Third most common reason is abandonment. This does not mean that the children do not sleep in the same place as their mothers, it means that during the day they are completely on their own - she is somewhere else - they must find their own food, or the money to buy it; and they receive no parental guidence, love, discipline, control: the street is their mother.
- Forth most common reason is parental abuse. Many children are made to work instead of attending school - usually in common labor, street vending, begging, petty crime, even in the sex trade. Or the parents' own background as battered children, or their adictions and frustrations are vented on their own children; they are violent and hateful toward them: unconcerned with their welfare, education. -
What do we do for these children and their families?
With the support and participation of local community leaders, our Peruvian social workers (helped by volunteers) sell them on the idea that getting educated is important, necessary and fun. We offer them our help in accomplishing this. It is an easy sell, except in cases where the family's only income is earned by the childrens'labor. And too often we only have the children themselves to make our case to, because the parents are unavailable (such parents eventually do turn up - when they think there might be something in it for them).
When we have enough children signed up, we open a Children's Centre in their community. We higher a local director (usually one of the community leaders, usually an unemployed teacher), one of our Social Workers or volunteers familiar with our programme serves as the co-director. The property for the centre is usually provided by the community, a member of the community or we rent it.
By this time we have a group of parents and members of the community who are working together with us and sharing the responsibility of getting their children educated. Yesterday in alta Trujillo the parents built two class rooms in someones'back lot with materials we provided - we had volunteers there to help them, but the parents wanted to do it themselves. They don't have money to give toward their childrens' education, but they want to give what they do have. This week end the mothers of the children in our first Children's Centre in Lima will paint the rooms of the simple house we are using. It was their idea.
The children and our volunteers and staff turn up at the centres at 9:AM. Often the children's mothers arrive carrying tables and the children carrying chairs from their own homes; and when they finish they will return with this furniture. The local director brings the school materials we have provided, and we begin teaching the children. From late November through March we concentrate on children young enough to enter first or second grade in normal schools, but who had no chance on their own of enrolling, for one of the above mentioned reasons. We teach them basic alphatization and math - spicing this up with art, music and sports provided by our international volunteers. We also teach them group discipline and behavior and hygene. Our volunteers arrive from the city each morning with a packed lunch: sandwiches, fruit and fresh drinks. Our doctors visit and either treat them or get them into the local medical post (which we pay for), and our nurses treat their parasites and sarna. Our Psychologist deals with each child (and usually has to work more with the parents than the children).
During this time our social workers are getting the children's documentation (if there is none), and registering each child in a local school. This is not always easy, and may require pressure from local community leaders, and even help from our connections in the Ministry of Education, or our relationship with larger NGOs or Church groups who operate schools (Intervida, Fey y Alegria). But we always manage to get our children enrolled. We normally end up paying most of the cost required in getting our children into school, but we try hard to get the parents to participate as much as possible.
When these children are safely in school we take in older children, who are too old to be accepted into normal schools, but who want (or we have persuaded) to be educated. We give them a very basic education. They may be with us for two or more years, and they will end up with a certificate of competency reflecting the educational skills they have mastered. We also feed, medicate and provide Psychological and social services to these children, and usually clothes.
We also continue our contact with the children we have enrolled in normal schools. For the next two years we will - with the school's permission and co-operation - send small teams of our professionals and volunteers into their schools twice a month to hold sessions of our "Club". These take place during the lunch break so children from the morning and the afternoon sessions can attend, and usually a volunteer teacher from the school who teaches our age children participates - also a few of the poorest children from the school who are not ours, but who the school has proposed to us. We provide games, homework help, a small meal (also to the teacher), and it gives our Social Workers and Psychologist an opportunity to spend time with the children away from their homes - to continue helping them. And our international volunteers play with the children and express their usual love and support for the children, always encouraging them to stay in school and complete their education. We give prizes for the best grades achieved, for school attendance and attendance at Club events.
Yes of course we work with the police. Every large police station has a Family and Community section, often presided over by a female police officer, and they are a great help. But the truth is, in the communities where we work the only contact the people have with the police is when they see them come to arrest someone or solve a crime problem. They also see police accompanying our social workers and volunteers into the most dangerous sections of some communities.
Yes of course we work with the Judiciary. In every city where we work we are responsible for getting children saved from violent or neglectful parents. We do this through Demuna, part of the Ministry of Women. Some of the cases we are responsible for make it into the press, and this sometimes places our social workers in danger; because the culprits almost never go to jail - and they are angry with us.
Yes of course we work closely with the Ministry of Education - without doing so we could not get our children into their schools
We also work in close co-operation with World Vision, Lyons, Rotary and local churches - anyone we can get to help.
If it appears, as you say, we are working in isolation, perhaps this is because most Peruvians have never been to the places where we work, are unaware of just how many at-risk children there actually are: children who will never get educated unless someone comes to help them..
Do you think we should write it like this on our web site?
Thank you for your help and consideration.
All good wishes, Bruce Thornton"
I was sy=urprised and impressed, Andy, that you actually turned up. Thank you, and sorry I did not pass the word to them in time to have the red carpet out. If you change your mind, and actually do go out with them to where we actually work in Cusco, you will certainly come back with a different impression what you presently hold.
All the best,
Bruce
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