…Go : Monday 3 October, 1pm, on the volley-ball field in the Parque Central de Alpachaca, Ibarra!Meet CTI’s operating & consulting team:
- Cinthya: our teacher, lives in Alpachaca & comes from a family of teachers, has mostly experience with smaller children and has led for a couple of years a local street initiative with kids in Alpachaca.
- Fernando: our social worker, who also works for the local authorities, lives in Alpachaca and has many years experience in street & summer projects with youth at risk in & out of Alpachaca. - Cefa students from Fe y Alegria’s local educational centre: all recently graduated & currently between studies, most of them are committed to supporting CTI and live in & around Alpachaca.
- CTI Board: composed of 5 Fe y Alegria professionals (college teachers & social workers) who will feed into the street session strategic planning (college curricular, gaps & needs) and also bring support and advice on the social needs observed by the operating team.
What will CTI be about?
- An adaptation of Cuentamelo Todo Quito (cf. below for an update!), CTI will provide a recreational space for kids & adolescents to learn about & live out their rights- starting with being children and the right to play and learn, but also learn by & through playing.
- Alpachaca is known to be a disaffected suburb of Ibarra, situated 6mns away from Fe y Alegria’s educational centre, with high levels of poverty and unemployment. Approximately 60% of Fe y Alegria’s school and college students (the centre provides for both, one in the morning the other in the afternoon) live in Alpachaca but there is little relationship with the local community which is pretty much left to its own devices, with a youth at risk of exposure to high levels of deviancy (alcohol, drug use & vending, violence & delinquency).
- A session planning is currently being drawn up by the operating team laying out what the initial themes will be, starting with the overarching theme of “The Right to a Dignified Life” valuing one’s life, looking after one's body, knowing the dangers of the street….all this to be more confident, realize one's life options and re-appropriate one’s living space…starting with your streets!
When will CTI be taking up the streets?
- Thanks to the local municipal authorities, DS&H and Fe y Alegria have been granted an authorisation to be, in the afternoons, in Alpachaca’s Parque Central: Mondays (starting 3.10.11!), Wednesdays and Fridays for a total of 14 hours.
What are CTI’s materials so far?
- 199 books: carefully selected stock chosen for CTI Mobile Library thanks to our supporting partner Better World Books LEAP grant.
- The tent, mats, Mobile Library wagon & initial didactic materials will be all be delivered on D-day.
- The Mobile School (2nd school donated by our Mobile School partner- this time for our CTI project!) has been slowed down in Ecuadorian customs last week but finally released (!) and should be in Ibarra for our Wednesday session!
- Thanks to Julio Cesar, the Head of the Alpachaca area, these will all be safely stored in the Communal House just opposite the Park.
As it all unfolds we will be keeping you posted with photos next week! We will also be welcoming the visit of Tona and Gonzo, 2 Mobile School Latin American representatives, who are here for 3 weeks to train our Ibarra team and “refresh” for a few days the Quito members!! ;0
And CUENTAMELO TODO QUITO (CTQ)? Stronger, higher…further
Over the summer, the kids elected their set of games and activities and Rosario along with the team set out to design the street planning accordingly…they did have to opt out of a few however such as “sleeping” (the Plaza San Francisco not being the ideal setting for such [non]activity) and “eating” (that would possibly turn our street session into complete havoc!). So the activities ranged from sports activities, arts & crafts but also visits to local museums such as a 2nd visit to the Presidential Palace, the Wax museum and also the City museum. Within each of these activities, the CEFA team leads, joins and supports all activities.
Since September, things have sped up as schools opened up and families have been rushing around town sourcing uniforms, books and all necessary materials that allow one to attend classes. The streets in the centre are back to human & car traffic and congestions at the various schooling hours…As you now know, the schooling system is divvied up in 3: morning, afternoon and evening school. And as most state/public school require uniforms here, Quito’s old hilly town ripples with streaming colours from 6.30am…All this preparation has meant that our attendance in Cuentamelo Todo Quito has slowed down, as children are sent home with heavy homework and parents are trying to organize their new timetables.
Since end of August, we have been preparing going back to school and what that entails, at the personal level but also in relation to one’s family and the wider social circle of friends, teachers, and its consequent general sense of belonging. Having shared the excitements and anxieties of the participants we now know well, this month will be interesting in observing how they are integrating back into the schooling system, where their difficulties may lie and how Cuentamelo Todo Quito can support them in better achieving. For example, last week, a participant came to us and informed us he had received a bad grade, we agreed that he would bring his work the next day to go over it together and see how he could do better next time.
CTQ brief update
- Since August, CTQ operates 4 times a week from la Plaza San Francisco.
- Thanks to our supporting partner Better World Book’s LEAP grant, DS&H has purchased 202 books to enhance its Mobile Library, built a much sturdier wagon to transport our now rather lush stock! And the Team has also benefited from 2 trainings by Yolanda, a Pedagogic Advisor to the Libresa Editorials, on reading techniques to discover new ways to "tell" the book.
- After 2 years of great collaboration, Santi, our Cefa member and session coordinator, has left the team to find a full-time job to sponsor his studies- we have just found out he has found that job & we wish the best of luck..
- Maritza, another Cefa leader who has been with us for over a year, has followed up closely and is now coordinating the sessions supporting Rosario along with the rest of the Cefa group, namely Cynthia, Romel, Jessica, Johanna and Angel.
- Magaly & Angelica, 2 final year students from the University Politecnica Salesiana (UPS), are collaborating with us since early September for 6 months. During that time, and beyond accompanying in the street sessions, they will be developing side-research and offering personal psychological follow-up to some of our participants.
- Fanny, Karina, Alex & Veronica, the first wave of our Pedagogy students from the UPS will be with us for a period of 2 months, starting Monday 3 bringing their technical expertise and skills to support Rosario.
- Monica, our social worker, is currently in talks with our health partner, the UMSC (with whom we are carrying out a new set of medical checks for our participants), to coordinate how 2 medical students from the Universidad Catolica can take part in CTQ, animating specific sessions and carrying out an individual follow-up on the treatments prescribed in those checks.
We look forward to an exciting beginning of school year with a strong dedicated team, starting with Tona & Gonzo, our Mobile School partner representatives, who arrived last night and will be with us in Quito for a few days for that long-awaited “refresher” (the last one was with their first donation, in March 2010)!
Snaps to follow…so stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment