CENIT Celebrates 15 Years

On April 20^th, CENIT celebrated its quinceañera, or 15^th birthday. The day was marked by: mass, opening remarks by our Director Hermana Jaqueline, remarks by the nun that founded CENIT, songs by CENIT's primary school students, typical dances also done by CENIT's students, a meal for everyone involved, and various other activities. It was an exciting and important day for CENIT, and marks an impressively long stay in a really tough neighbourhood of Quito. A big thank you to all of you who have been involved in CENIT in the past 15 years, be it as volunteer, donor, supporter, or just general interested party. Here's to another 15 years!

Queridos Amigos de CENIT:

Welcome to the latest edition of ¡CENIT Ahora! We hope you enjoy our format change and that you can forgive us for March’s failed attempt at a newsletter; for us it means we can now send this newsletter with the click of a button through our mailing list, instead of spending days messing with hotmail. This means that there's more time for other exciting changes, like our recently updated website. Still located at www.cenitecuador.org, you'll be able to find an amazing amount of up-to-the minute (ok, to the month) information about CENIT, thanks to content editing of Medical Services Coordinator Alison Smith, and the handy design work of Street Outreach Coordinator Robert Meyer.

We've actually been working quite hard lately to improve not only our programs for the children, but also working to improve the administrative side of things as well. Some highlights of recent success include the opening of a new bank account in England that facilitates the donation of money from the UK to CENIT (information can be obtained by emailing us, it's soon to be on our website as well), hard work of fundraising volunteer Larisa Clarke to improve the financial transparency of CENIT and develop documents such as an annual report (currently in the works), and the launch of a new sponsorship program that we will be emailing you about later this month. We've also been writing letters to universities and volunteer organizations worldwide to recruit volunteers: if you have an organization you think we should contact, or would like to contact yourself, please email us at contact@cenitecuador.org, attn: Lowri.

Huge thanks are due to our overseas partners ViaNiños and Sonrisa, formerly known as TECCWE. They have both been working extremely hard sponsoring events and fundraisers for CENIT, and are both incredibly committed to taking full advantage of their relationship with CENIT. We continue to be amazed by all of their hard work, and truly encourage more ex-volunteers to become involved (their information is on our website under Home Country Networks). For those of you who will be in London on June 24^th and 25^th we encourage you to attend the Discovering Latin America Rhythms Festival: this is an affiliation made through Sonrisa with a group of Latinos who live in the UK, and the Rhythms Festival will be held to benefit CENIT. You can get more information at their website: www.discoveringlatinamerica.com. Additionally, we are pleased to announce a new partnership with U.S. organization Bruce Ecuador, who will be helping with our Nivelaciones program which works to prepare children for school for the first time.

As you can see, we've been busy, and this small introduction doesn't even touch on the programs which you’ll read about in later on. We're winding down the school year in just over a month, and soon to be gearing up for another. Which makes it seem like a great time to say thanks: thanks to current volunteers, past volunteers, relatives and friends of volunteers who have made their time here possible, donors, collaborators, and everyone who so generously gives of their time and energy to make CENIT a success. A special thank you goes out in this edition to departing Medical Services Coordinator Alison Smith, who is leaving CENIT after what I'm pretty sure has been our longest volunteer commitment ever (nearly three years). Alison has done some lasting work in her time here, and her energy, dedication, and wealth of CENIT knowledge will be sorely and sincerely missed.

We encourage all of you to stay in contact: by checking out our new website, by joining a group of ex-volunteers, by emailing us with any questions at contact@cenitecuador.org, or simply by reading this newsletter. Although we're working hard and improving daily, we still need your help and support, and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sarah Guerette,
Co-Volunteer Coordinator, CENIT

CISNES

Cisnes is going really well at the moment. We have an average of about 25-30 children each day. However, this number increases towards the end of the week and one Friday we actually had 53 children – the art activity that day was pretty manic, I must say! We are continuing to use stickers for good behaviour which has worked really well – the children are very polite – most of the time! We are continuing with the educational programme which was started in January but in addition, May is the Month of Health Awareness and Fitness and so we have introduced games such as Follow My Leader and Wheelbarrow Racing. We even took the stereo down to the market and played musical statues much to the amusement of the audience we accumulated. And so to the kids: Andy has just been signed up for school and starts soon so we will be losing him in the mornings. Frankie has decided he likes a bit of variety and goes off to Caballos some days! Johnny and Dayana have now moved to Ambato. And Frankie, Mori, Andy, Alex and now Kevin attend Tutoria de Juegos on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

CABALLOS

The Caballos market programme works every weekday morning with the working children from the Caballos area of the market. The aim of the sessions is to liberate the children from their work and to provide them with a pre school structure, teaching them manners, hygiene, discipline and allowing them to develop their creative abilities in numerous activities. At the moment, we have on average 15 children every day, and most are regulars. The good thing about our market is that we are able to build good relationships with the parents because we pick up and return most of the children to the stalls where their parents work. The children’s ages vary from 2 to 13 years of age which is a big age gap that can cause problems for those who are 10 years old and above. Recently we have been working with two Dutch girls who are here as part of their university degrees, and they have set up a separate session for the older kids with the aim of teaching them about the theatre.

MAYORISTA

Mayorista has gone through a lot of changes recently as we have moved to a new home in the market. We are now in a room above the Mayorista market offices. This brought a few problems as the children adjusted to their new surroundings, but over time, the situation improved, although some safety issues remain. The children are still as gorgeous as ever, and it is still very enjoyable to work with them. We have recently got one or two children into local schools. They continue to love colouring in and craft activities. The number of children each day varies between ten and forty.

REGISTRO

Registro Civil market has been progressing steadily over the past few months, and we now have about 10 shoe-shining boys between the ages of 12 and 20 with whom we work every day. As most of them did not have the opportunity to finish primary school, they are really keen to learn subjects such as English and Maths, which we try to teach them in small groups a few times a week. We are just starting a program in which we hope to introduce the boys to one new subject a week, such as nutrition or sex education. We have been playing football a few times a week and have won quite a few matches against a local boys' secondary school team! The highlight of the past few months though has been taking 3 of the boys camping in the mountains a few hours south of Quito - for some of them it was their first time out of the city - and we had a fantastic time trekking and cooking hotdogs on the campfire… this is an activity which we hope to repeat with the boys in the future.

SANTA MARIA

In the last few weeks Santa Maria market has seen a complete change of volunteers, with both Evie and Christophe leaving recently. However with time, some broken Spanish and practise, we are learning our lessons. We have now set some basic rules which we have discussed with the kids, including saying please and thank you, not fighting and saying sorry. We have tried to enforce these with the wonder of stickers, which thankfully has worked well, and we reinforce the rules most mornings. The children also have a new favourite game, which is "¿Que hora es, Señor Lobo?" which they all enjoy and even ask to play!

TROLE

Trole has been evolving since the last newsletter was sent out. Firstly, Donna and Aoife had to leave but they were replaced by Caroline and Michael. However, recently there have been fewer boys coming regularly and in the last few weeks it has been just one, two, or three each day. The others may return but we are not hopeful as they seem to have been driven away by a lack of work at El Recreo. Therefore, as a trial, I am currently going down to the market alone only three times a week and the other days I am going to Registro. Despite this we have had our successes too. Our attempts to join a football league failed, due to lack of funds and organisation but we recently had a very successful trip up the Basilica and to Parque El Ejido with Gallo and Franklin. Also, Gallo has just started to learn to use a computer and the internet. Both these came about after the boys read through a new leaflet listing all the options available at CENIT and hopefully these successes will lead on to more with these boys and the others if they return.

TUTORÍA DE JUEGOS

Play therapy is going really well at the moment. We have an average of six or seven children each day, from both Caballos and Cisnes. They love lots of different activities; their favourite game right now is playing with the kitchen set, with play dough for the food. This helps them to learn to share which some of them are still not very good at doing! We also try and follow the educational themes of the market programme. The kids are lovely to work with. Frankie, Mari and Alex continue to attend from Cisnes, along with Andy and Kevin. From Caballos we have Peter Michelle and Naemi.

CLASES DE ARTE

The art class has been going well over the past few weeks. We almost always have all our six mums and they seem to really enjoy this time for socialising and learning a bit about art to help with making their cuadros. We try to keep the activities varied. Over the last month we have had a class on expressionism in which I tried to encourage the mums into using their imaginations and producing something original. This class went well and some of the work produced was very interesting. The last two classes we have been using papier-mâché as a way of creating texture underneath the surface of the painting. These lessons were really fun as it was something a bit different and everyone got really involved and a little bit messy.

ENGLISH CLASSES

English at CENIT takes place 3 times a week (Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays). Since there are 3 different classes and a limited number of teachers, the lessons can sometimes be a bit difficult. However, when you see the children actually picking up vocabulary and becoming more and more receptive to the language, it makes it all the more fulfilling. Whereas previously not a lot of significance was placed on English, the department now is much more organised as well as having more resources. This therefore has a knock-on effect on the confidence of the teachers and consequently, how much of the language the children pick up. So, we can safely say that English at CENIT is in safe hands for the future and that its popularity will continue to grow as the children realise how well it will serve them in the future.

DAY CARE

The day care programme is relatively new here at CENIT. It is held every Thursday morning and most Thursday afternoons during the Parents' Classes. We aim to keep the children occupied and happy, using crafts, painting and toys. Lately, we have made masks, crowns and cards for la Día de la Madre. Different children attend every week, and this can be frustrating, but every so often a familiar face pops up, and this makes it all worthwhile.

CEA

CEA runs a morning and an afternoon programme. The programme consists in helping children who go to regular schools (morning or afternoon classes) with their homework. Often they have no chance to do this at home since their parents work, and cannot help them, or the kids have to work themselves. After CEA or before CEA they have lunch at CENIT. Over the last few months the programme has been running quite well since we have been lucky enough to have a bunch of motivated volunteers. Some of the volunteers were able to come every day and to stay for a longer period of time. This really helped to give the programme a bit of continuity. Volunteers started to have weekly meetings to plan activities which could be done with the children, after they would have finished their homework. Some CEA volunteers from Great Britain and the USA had a lot of nice ideas and the children enjoyed it very much. They made masks, they had a competition in flying their own paper made airplanes, and they did interviews with each other, to name but a few activities. On Saturday 29 April we took them out to a beautiful swimming pool, north of Quito. Fortunately we had no Quito rain but a bit of sunshine. None of the kids could swim but they had a ball! Some of the volunteers ventured into the water to teach the children how to swim or just play with them. After the swimming we all sat in the grass to eat lunch. The children had another hour or so in the water before we headed back to Quito. At the moment of writing this article we do not have that many volunteers in the programme, but the school year is nearing its end. I do hope that for the next school year enough volunteers will be available to run this wonderful programme.

INVIERTA UNA VIDA

Adopt a Dream pairs the poorest children at CENIT, who, according to their professors are well behaved and do well in school, with Padrinos, who donate US$20 - 50 per month in order for their child to help to cover the costs for food, clothing, psychological and medical care, and education. To intermediate between the padrino and the child, program coordinators to do family visits with a social worker every three months, go shopping with the families every first Thursday of the month for food, clothing, and soap and toothpaste, and generally involve themselves in the lives of the children and their families to ensure that they are receiving the social support they need to be able to make the most use of the financial help they are receiving. One important benefit of having a sponsor parent is that it frees the children from having to work up to 8 hours a day, outside of the classroom, and in fact one of the rules of the program is that the children must not work.

CLASES DE BISUTERÍA

Jewellery classes are now held on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons for two hours. At the moment there are five women attending the classes, although rarely do all five attend at the same time. The jewellery that has been made recently hasn't been selling that well, so I have been introducing them to new materials to give them a little more inspiration, imagination and motivation. I occasionally buy a jeweller magazine to help give them fresh new ideas; however, most of what they make they design themselves. I recently took the class to visit the bead shops in the Centro Historico, so they could see what was available and choose some materials themselves. They also then had the opportunity to see some of the jewellery styles that are on sale. When the jewellery is sold, the woman who originally made it gets 80% of the price and the jewellery classes get the other 20% for new materials.

PANADERÍA

Cinnamon rolls, honey oatmeal bread, and chocolate chip cookies are just a few of the sweet treats that have been coming out of the panadería lately. The workshop finishes on July 6^th for the school year, and we're looking to "graduate" 5 students. They have turned into capable and talented panaderos, and even successfully made bread when the teacher wasn't there. Thanks to all of those who have bought our products, we've even managed to earn enough money to pay for all our supplies, meaning that we've been financially independent. All and all, a great year!

PROYECTO DE CUERO

At the moment there are eight girls (aged between 13 and 15) in the Clase de Cuero all working between 9am and 12pm, Monday to Thursday. The girls work hard each day to make the wallets, belts, bags and bracelets that are then sold to give them a monthly salary. This month has been successful as we had several orders from Europe. Three were from ex volunteers who now, back home, saw that CENIT products could easily be sold, in their old primary schools for example. Sonrisa, a registered UK charity made up of all ex volunteers who raise funds and help recruite future volunteers for CENIT, also ordered a selection of our products. These will be sold at the "Rhythms Festival: Celebrating the diversity of Latin American music & dance" which will be held in London at the end of June (all profits to CENIT!). If anyone wants to buy any of our products please talk to Susannah.

CLINIC

Greetings from the CENIT Medical Services Team! We are extremely excited to bring you this special Quinceañero edition's news. Besides 2006 marking 15 incredible years of CENIT, this is also the Clinic's 5th anniversary!!! So, to all past clinic volunteers and donors, please pat yourselves on the backs for a job extremely well done. We look forward to continuing to provide quality, reliable, accessible free health care to the CENIT community and other needy members of the southern Quito population. During the past five years (May 01 - May 06), the clinic has seen 5,379 patients. Between 2001 and 2005, our annual number of patients attended just by the clinic has increased from 550 to 1480, an almost 300% increase in less than 5 years! And this number does not include the patients attended in other Medical Services Programs. During the past couple of years, we’ve also added several programs to the Clinic program. Since clinic's foundation, the medical service has expanded to include a dental program, monthly campaigns, twice weekly Parent's School lectures, a comprehensive sexuality education program in the Colegio, monthly campaigns in the street outreach program, and a daily street clinic.

May marked a sad farewell to Dental Service coordinators Katy and Trish. Their hard work will undoubtedly ensure future dental program success. We also recently said goodbye to Street Clinic Assistant Clemence. She was an extremely valued addition to the program, and we will miss her dearly. That being sad, CENIT's Medical Services continue to thrive. Street Health Outreach Nurse Liz continues to reach some of the most underserved communities through her compassionate approach to health care. Many of the patients have established such a strong bond with her that they are now comfortable in seeing specialists. She recently updated her information sheet, and is gathering the first comprehensive health statistics for these market populations. Our Health Education Coordinator Jennifer has really done an excellent job in developing trust, self esteem, and health awareness amongst the Colegio kids and the Parent's School Attendees. She continues to coordinate her efforts with the Clinic Staff, psychologist, and social workers, and by doing so has created a culturally sensitive comprehensive health education plan. The Clinic's volunteers Anna, Isabel, and Liz continue to do excellent work, and our patient numbers keep rising. The clinic also wishes to send its heartfelt thanks to SPENCO MEDICAL CORPORATION, which recently gave us the other half of their 3-year financial commitment, ensuring that the clinic will continue operation until December 2007.

During the past five years, the CENIT Medical Services program has made some significant steps towards helping working children and their families improve their health, but we still have plenty of room to grow. Our dream is to continue to provide this necessary service, and I am fully confident that we will achieve this dream if we continue to prioritize health care. In July of this year, many of you past clinic volunteers will be receiving letters asking to help continue this effort that we all care so much about. If you are interested in helping, even if you never worked in the clinic, and do not receive a letter, please contact me (Alison) at aestex99@aol.com , and I will be sure to send you information. Health care is a basic human right, one which CENIT families deserve to enjoy. Please help me ensure that they will be able to in the future. Thank you so much for your time. And, for everyone with whom I've worked during the past three years (this is my last week), thank you so much for making CENIT such a wonderful experience. CENIT has been, and continues to be, a special place thanks to its exceptional kids, families, staff, volunteers and donors. Thanks So Much!

Alison E. Smith, Director of Medical Services

SEX EDUCATION

As always, time flies here at CENIT and we're coming to the close of another academic year. We are just saying goodbye to Clemence Sullivan, a dedicated volunteer who co-taught the sex-ed classes. Her enthusiasm and commitment were definite pluses to this year's curriculum. Some of the highlights of this academic year were a successful "condom on the banana" demonstration in all of the classes, and the use of audiovisual materials to help stimulate the students’ interest. Goals, values and decision making have been the latest focus of our classes and the senior girls (Grade 10) are going to be making a picture year-book for their final assignment. One of our goals, taking a field trip to the nearby CEMOPLAF women’s clinic, will not be realized this year due to time constraints! A new health and sexual education video library has just been established at CENIT and we hope that all in our community can reap the benefits of this great resource. Currently, the Sex Ed. coordinator/teacher position hasn’t been filled for next year — please, if you know anyone who would be interested contact CENIT! Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or comments don't hesitate to contact me, Jennifer Trout, at troutjen@hotmail.com.

NIVELACIONES

Nivelaciones provides intensive tutoring for late starters until they reach their proper school level. This is aimed to be done within 5 months. In the past few months Nivelaciones has seen some older students leave and some new students arrive. The children are beginning to make good progress at their respective levels. Natalie has greatly improved and can now write the whole alphabet. Jessica who has only been at Nivelaciones a short while has readily mastered reading and writing and is now almost ready to go back to school.

KINDER

We are now coming to the end of the year in CENIT's Kindergarten and our 31 children are all showing that they have learned a lot. At Easter time they had their evaluations; many did very well and all are busy enrolling in local primary schools to continue their education. This year we have covered numbers, adding and subtracting, colours, the vowels, writing and reading basic sounds, some English and many other social education topics such as personal hygiene, public services and eating healthily. We have also been on educational outings to the theatre and the swimming pools. The Kindergarten also attended CENIT’s birthday celebrations to enjoy the music and dancing and were an adorable sight as they all released balloons to the cry of "¡Viva Cenit!" And at the end of a great year in Kinder, Viva Cenit indeed!

ALFABETIZACIÓN

Alfabetización is a programme based in the markets and aims to provide one-on-one lessons with the market women, teaching them how to read and write, since many have never had the opportunity to develop their skills or are illiterate because they have never had the opportunity to go to school at all. The past few months have been really successful due to the fact that there have been two volunteers working with the women instead of one. The result of this is that each student has been having up to two hours a week of lessons and we also have some new women: Christina (13) who is learning to read and write, Blanca (40s) who we are teaching mathematics, and Veronica (15), Mercedes (22) and Nati (20) who all want to learn basic English. Unfortunately we said goodbye to Vicky a few weeks ago. She had been working in the markets for almost a year, and was very popular with all the women she taught.

About CENIT

CENIT, El Centro de la Niña Trabajadora, or the Center for the Working Girl as it is known in English, is a non-governmental, non-profit organization devoted to helping working children (especially working girls) and their families overcome grinding poverty and improve their quality of lives through education and job training, nutrition programs, health and social services, psychological help and recreation.

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic order, founded CENIT in 1991, in response to their observations that the prevalence of child laborers in Quito had increased greatly due to urban migration, dept crisis, and an increase in poverty. They sought to give these children the necessary skills, talents and education so that they could find work away from the streets and hopefully break the cycle of child laborers.

Over fifteen years later, CENIT continues to be run by a group of nuns from the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. These nuns work in conjunction with about 35 Ecuadorian paid professionals (including teachers, administrators, psychologists and social workers), and around fifty foreign and national volunteers in order to locate the child workers, befriend them and their families, and eventually integrate them into an educational program.

CENIT welcomes people from all religions and creeds and offers educational, psychological and medical programs, as well as job training, to working children and their families. Its hope is that with these services, the children and their families might improve their quality of life. CENIT complies with all the requirements of Ecuadorian law with regards to charities and is registered with the Ministry of Social Health.

CENIT is situated in the south of Quito, near to the Camal Market, and is well positioned to help some of the poorest families in Quito. The majority of the children have suffered from various types of abuse, be it psychological, physical or sexual. As a result they often have deep-rooted problems. We at CENIT are of the belief that in order to achieve a real change in the life of any individual, it is necessary to work with the child, his or her family, and the community. As a result, despite the fact that CENIT's title is "The Center for the Working Girl", CENIT helps children and family members regardless of gender, although it continues to place special emphasis on helping female children due to the fact that they tend to have a disproportionately large workload.

CENIT is able to be effective due to the variety of programs we have, all of which confront the problems of working children, but each on a different level.

If you would like to volunteer with us, or to donate money, please contact us:

CENIT - El Centro de La Niña Trabajadora
Huacho 150 y José Peralta
Barrio El Camal
Quito, Ecuador
South America

Email: contact@cenitecuador.org.

Telephone: (+593) 2-265-4260