Dear Friends of CENIT,

Welcome to the September issue of ¡CENIT Ahora! I hope that this issue finds you all doing well. Rainy season has started again in Quito, as has the school year here at CENIT. We currently have 30 children enrolled in kinder, 78 enrolled in the primary school ESTAR, 133 in the high school RV, 75 children in CEA, and more than 20 women signed up for our productive workshops. School started on September 4th but we’re still gathering momentum as enrolments continue to climb bit by bit. School hours have been augmented this year with two hours of academic reinforcement in the morning for both ESTAR and RV, resulting in a more rigorous schedule for the children, and hopefully increased academic performance.

On October 3^rd, nearly a month after the school year started, we will initiate our productive workshops for the parents, including Parents' School as well. This will include a newly improved beauty school, and a new approach to the other workshops as well. We’re trying to involve the mothers more and more in all the aspects of the workshops: this past Monday we had our first “guest speaker” at the weekly volunteer meeting, a mother from the art class who came to talk about the program. Additionally, we’ve started adult literacy classes with a daily schedule here at CENIT, and have had impressive enrolment.
We have an enthusiastic and dedicated volunteer staff at the moment, including 12 volunteers who will be at CENIT for 9 months or more. We are very grateful for their time, energy, and effort to keep providing a quality service to our families. Due to the willingness of one such volunteer, about 6 CENIT staff members are currently attending daily English classes here in the volunteer office, making it even more of a bi-lingual adventure.

Other noteworthy points include: our continued involvement with the group Cactus Azul which provides theatre programs for the market children, a recent positive review from INNFA (Instituto Nacional del Niño y la Familia), a recent enjoyable visit from Daniel Faller from our German support group ViaNiños, and the opening of a new Nivelaciones program in Mayorista market due to the generosity of a program called Bruce Ecuador.

Although I could continue to talk about success and exciting new news here at CENIT…below you will find news from many of our programs, which we've tried to make as detailed as possible. Please don't hesitate to be in touch for whatever reason (contact@cenitecuador.org), and we'll do our best to be in touch as soon as we possibly can. Thank you to all of you who support and have supported CENIT: your help has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated, and without your efforts CENIT would not be where it is today. Thank you. Cuidense. And be in touch.

Sarah Guerette and Betty España, Volunteer Coordinators.

Fresh from the Market

Registro Civil

As any Registro veteran knows the boys of Registro Civil are characterized by their ups and downs, but in general I would say that the past few months have gone quite well. We have taken the boys on a few excursions to get them out of South Quito, including a camping trip with William, Darwin, and Victor this past May. Darwin and Victor also enrolled in a vocational school called TESPA in June to study electricidad. Unfortunately, after about a week of classes, they decided that it wasn’t for them and dropped out… Baby steps are being made however…

Luis is now working as a bus ayudante, and no longer shines shoes in Registro. Edgar is still around, and while he was exhibiting some aggressive behavior for a while, he is now back to himself and is still a really good kid. He is enrolled in school in the afternoons. William also is still enrolled in school, and has only been working at Registro a couple of days a week. Jesus is another of the boys who has seemed to cut down his workload a good bit in the market. He is also still enrolled in school. Emilio (while not a shoe shine boy, I think many of you still know of him) is still the "document guy" at Registro Civil, producing documents from birth-certificates to cedulas at a moment's notice. Darwin and Victor are now the core members of the group, and spend everyday working in the market. They have continuously expressed interest in getting involved in some sort of trade work, but when it comes down to actually making action of words their answer is the all too familiar "mañana".

Trole

The regulars in Trole these days are "Good Patricio", Gallo, Fernando, and Luis. There are a couple of new boys (new to my knowledge) Andrés and Oscar, but they only work a couple of times a week. The boys are doing well overall, but unfortunately are getting old, and really seem to be settling into their lifestyle as shoe-shiners. They still seem to enjoy their time with the CENIT volunteers, and continue to participate in activities, but I fear within the coming year, we might need to focus our resources and efforts on a new, younger group of boys that are more open to change.

"Good Patricio" is still the leader of the group. His son Anthony recently enrolled in Kindergarten near CENIT. Gallo and Fernando are both doing well. They basically work a lot, either shining shoes or doing construction work once or twice a month. Luis still retains the fire he had when I first met him a year ago. He is studying at night, and is still very interested in girls… If anyone remembers, he was the only one to attend Sex-Ed classes a year ago (about this time), and is still very interested in the subject…

Caballos

We had a problem with Angie Pumasunta who is a very shy girl, but today, she came to the market, I think she will start coming every day. I am hoping. Also I spoke with her family yesterday and today about it.

I am worried about Peter, he doesn’t want to come because his sisters started school and there is no-one who he is close to. I spoke with Gisella, and she's going to come tomorrow to talk with the family.

Cesar is 7 or 8 and he's disruptive when he doesn't like the program. When I see the mother I will talk to her about it. I will also speak with Cesar. It's difficult to speak with the mother because their stall moves sometimes.

Cesar, Franklin, Juanito and Miguel need a good male role model.

Our Regular Kids Are:

• Jocelyn Sana
• Juan Carlos
• Franklin Criollo
• Noemí Chimarro
• Eddison
• Bryan
• Juanito Billa
• Jenny Guape
• Freddy Ramos
• Cesar Ramos
• Angie Pumasunta

Our New Kids:

• Natalie Villa (2 años)
  

Cisnes

Cisnes Market had proper run of kids during the last months. There were like 30-50 kids daily and sometimes we felt almost overburdened. Contrarily, as school started recently we are now suffering from a huge regression and dealing with approximately 20-30 kids daily.
The kids though are still incredibly adorable and it is a pure joy every morning when they are running into us with a huge smile on their faces. It is touching seeing them accomplishing to vocalize difficult gringo names after a month of troublesome pronunciation training.

Concerning the kids: After hours of hide and seek on Camal we finally managed to take Kevin Paguay to the dentist. Though he was pale with fear, justifiable in consideration of the fact that five teeth had to be pulled, he was very brave and did not shed one tear.
Little roughneck Alex Vega is now in school and looks in his uniform like an archetype of an eager beaver.

Sweetheart Michelle Quispilo did become extremely self-confident and insists every morning on her solo performance of Estrellita.

Santa Maria

The last two weeks, I imagine, have been difficult for the children since two new volunteers have come to the market and two have left one a week ago and the other this last week. We have been working on the alphabet with the children. We sit down every morning and go over the alphabet with them. In the second week we introduced the alphabet song, which I think helped a lot. We also played a game called Señor Lobo, which helps to introduce the children to their numbers. And each day we had a different art or craft to do.

We have 8 children that we regularly see. The oldest of the children is Stalin. He is currently enrolled in school in the afternoons and comes to the Market with us in the morning. Stalin is great at participating in the group activities, as well as working on the solo activities he is given. He knows the alphabet very well and can count over hundred easily. He is an excellent role model for the other children.

Sylvan is Stalin's little sister. She is 2 years old and so it can be difficult to get her to participate in the group activates, but she enjoys the solo activities such as coloring etc. She pays attention when we are doing the alphabet and numbers and she is learning them slowly.

Catalina is 3 years old and only participates sometimes. She is shy and very sensitive. I doubt that she knows her entire alphabet but when she is participating she does very well. She mostly has a sunny disposition and is wonderful to have around.

Camilla is 4 years old. She always seems to be in good mood and is a positive influence in the group. She participates and interacts with the other children very well. She does not know the entire alphabet yet but she can count pass ten. She is not yet enrolled in school.

Carina is 4 years old and, though she does not always want to come with us or participate, when she does participate she does well.

Lucia is 4 years old. Her brother Alex is 3 and their youngest sister Erica is two. Often they don't want to come with us, but when they do they participate very well. Alex interacts well with the other children.

Mayorista

Surfacing from a period of much change with the start of the new academic year and a complete turn over of volunteers almost all at once, Mayorista market is at times a little disorganised but ultimately still busy and fun with around 20 to 25 kids a day. The singing is a little more difficult without the bigger children who knew all of the words because most of the younger ones still haven’t quite got the hang of them, but "La familia Sapa" and the recent addition of the "Hokey Pokey" remain firm favourites. The classes seem a little calmer and more subdued but certain members like Michel, Brian and the “onion kids” from the onion warehouse ensure that things never become too serene. The “onion kids” are now stabile regulars and recently their mothers have been becoming more interested and involved with CENIT, some of them even having enquired about the literacy classes. Luis still visits us when he doesn’t have classes and he is now entering his final year of primary school. His mother is working with Piedad to find ways in which Luis can further continue his studies and it is really good to see the support and advice of CENIT actually unfold.

We have recently started to be able to vary and divide the educational activities into age groups as there are five volunteers, something which really seems to work as it allows us to challenge the more advanced children too. This also helps alleviate the continuing problem; certain children bring there younger siblings who are too young to participate but must accompany the older ones in order for them to be able to attend. Using the division into groups we can take the children who are too young to one side and read them a story while their elder sisters, like Lisbeth and Jenny amongst others can play free of the responsibility of caring for their younger brothers and sisters. We believe this is an important part of what the outreach program sets out to do.

Other CENIT Programs

Bisutería

A new year starts for jewellery classes soon and with plenty of new ideas buzzing around it should be a great one. So far we’ve only got a couple of mums signed up but with a week and a half to go there’s plenty of time to get a lot more!

This year we're gong to have a big focus on giving our mums all the skills they’ll need to successfully have a career in jewellery design and making. This means more lessons about design and the theory behind it, as well as learning practical techniques the hope is that our students will also experience educational fulfilment, maybe for the first time in their lives. They will also be much more involved in the selling of the jewellery this year as well as its packaging. This means the products will be even more appealing than they already are! Most importantly we're going to try and make these wonderful pieces of jewellery more widely available, so keep your eyes open over the next year and you could pick up a great piece of jewellery, and support an even better cause!

Alfabetización

Literacy classes began on the 18th of September and now between Monday and Thursday, anyone who would like to learn how to read or write is welcome to participate. Previously, volunteers worked with 6 women in the nearby Camal market. However, this was difficult as many of the women were distracted by their work or would not show up to lessons. Therefore, this year the literacy classes will take place in the rooms at CENIT, where there is a better learning environment. We still don’t have much experience building the womens' knowledge. Mainly the students will have to show progress in how much they can read and write by practicing it themselves. Our other important goal is convince the women to come to class as often as possible in order to learn most effectively so that they have the opportunity to escape their days of work a pain. It is not unusual for the women to tell us painful and sad stories of their past. They have to come to see the Literacy classes as a chance for them to learn as well as to relax. At the moment, we have four students who come on different days of the week and other women continue to come and see about joining in the literacy classes.

CEA

The mission of CEA continues — to help the kids with their homework. The first day of CEA this semester was the 12th of September. As often happens the beginning, it was a bit chaotic for a while but now everything is working better. In charge of the morning session are Sister Emilia Terranova and Merly Angamarca. Around 20 kids participate in CEA's morning session and in the afternoon, when Mónica Echevarria Avela is in charge, there are more than 30 participants. The number of volunteers is a bit unequally distributed, there is only one in the morning whilst nine in the afternoon. As a result of that we are now looking for volunteers that are interested in working at CEA in the morning. Just like previous volunteers have tried with, as far as I know, good results we as well want to have activities for the children that have already finished their homework so that they don't disturb the others that are still working. The only thing different is that we want to come up with less expensive activities that serves an educatory purpose at the same time. Right now we are only in the process of brainstorming and that's to say that we haven't started with these activities yet but we hope to do so in the near future.

Clínica de la Calle

We have recently had a donation of US-$ 2412.99 dollars from the Sisters of the Good Shepherd Australia and New Zealand province, which is fantastic: this allows the street clinic to continue for about another 8 months. I am also looking for a replacement to take over the street clinic, unfortunately after three years it's time for me to go home. I've put a job ad in a few UK and Australian nursing magazines as well as asked friends to put the notice about the job in various hospitals back home, so fingers crossed I'll find someone soon. I have had a few people interested already which is great. The Street Clinic is increasing so it would be a shame to see it fold, if there is anyone at all interested or knows of someone who is interested in coming over to volunteer please let Sarah or myself know…

Cheers, Liz Collins — lizcollins17@yahoo.com.au

Dentista

This programme is going again, I just started last week. So far I’m still finding my way around, but all is going well. The dentists are very helpful, giving us some reductions and letting the kids jump the queue. The children are generally being very brave for the treatment, even if at first some of them don't want to go or even run away from me! We now have funding from a very generous donor so that we can take all the children in CENIT programmes to the dentist for evaluations. This will be a great help in treating the kids systematically in priority order.

Clases de Inglés (9^a, 9^b, 10^a, 10^b)

English classes in the high school are Monday through Thursday, at 12:45. At this point, due to the basic knowledge of English that the students have, the volunteers are mainly assisting the teacher. Long conversations are not possible, so time is spent correcting notebooks or written tests. In addition to this, volunteers also help the teacher in other ways, depending on what work the students have for that day. Like any other CENIT program, English classes in RV must have a goal. The goal of this program, from the standpoint of the volunteers, is to build a positive relationship with the students so that they feel comfortable taking advantage of the volunteers' English knowledge. If the students don't see how the volunteer can be of any help, they won't ask any questions, or take advantage of this knowledge. We need to assure them that we're here, along with the professor, to help.

Inglés en ESTAR

English classes in ESTAR have started again, this year there are two volunteers teaching all the classes. At the moment we are beginning all the classes with review games to see what they have retained over the summer. A good number of the third level remember very well greeting phrases, colours, animals, and parts of the body. The second level also is very good with greeting phrases and every time I see Anderson Aguilar or Paula Pinza in the patio they greet me with an enthusiastic "Hello! How are you?" and "What is your name?" It's really great to hear them speak English outside the classroom! All the classes, from first level up, offer the teachers many challenges, but we are ready to do as much as possible to teach them! We hope that they will be able to enjoy the classes and learn as much as possible!

Tutoría de Juegos

As I came to CENIT in November last year, they told me that it would be nice if I could help the project "Tutoría de Juegos" because at that moment the project wasn't working like it should be.

First of all, we left the title "play therapy" behind, because the project is run by volunteers with different background and not by professional play therapists.

Then I didn't know exactly what to do with the children who where kicking and screaming around. After one hour my head was spinning around of all the noise and I was tired of correcting the children all the time. One other problem was that there should be six children, but there were daily only one two or three, so that was a shame.

Little by little I started with the other volunteers to put more structure in the "Tutoría de Juegos" and we started to work together with the social worker of the market to motivate the parents to send the children or if necessary look for new children. This resulted in something positive, now we have 5 to 7 children every day. The structure also worked well, now the children know what to expect; they enter the room, sing songs, put stickers on a week schedule, do an activity on the table and play "free". The children don't just kick and hit around anymore. On the contrary, they can work very concentrated on activities like puzzles, building blocks, drawing, painting, gluing, cutting etc. and it is funny to see how they are now fighting about who can clean the table!

The best activities we did last months were going on a daytrip to "Villa Camino Especial" (we went swimming) and making cookies, they were all excited and enjoyed every bit of it, lovely to see this!

Kindergarden

On the 4^th of September, school started for thirty 5 year old children here in CENIT's "jardin". In the first few weeks the number of hours increased up to 1.30 pm in this week.
The daily routine starts with the repetition of seemingly easy aspects, such as the days of the week, followed by songs the children love to sing.

Professora María Fernanda concentrated in the first weeks on teaching basic handcrafts and painting techniques. Strict guidelines seem to be important because most of the children are overextended by tasks concerning their creativity, for example a task asking for a painting of their Jardin. However, a fast and positive development is visible.

After the break, the children play under the eyes of the professora or volunteer Hendrik Cramer in the Patio, during which some aggressive children will sometimes attract attention.

In the next weeks the basic learning will continue as well subjects such as maths, sports, and religion.

Taller de Arte

The Art Class has changed a little bit this year. The mothers of the students that attend CENIT are learning different techniques to improve their artwork. Also, the mothers will learn how to sell their artwork. In order to do this, the teacher will take them to the shops and stores that sell the materials so that they can buy them on their own. At the same time, the mothers will also help to make a display to help attract more people that are buying their artwork in the other stores. Hopefully, this will teach the mothers to become more independent of CENIT and to gain more money to support their family.

Adopt-a-Dream

Adopt-a-Dream is growing! In the last six months, four new children joined the program, from both CENIT's primary school, ESTAR, and from CEA, CENIT's homework help program. Of the thirty children that now belong to Adopt-a-Dream, 28 passed the school year last year, which is a percentage much higher that the passing rate from either CENIT's primary or secondary schools.

This past September, thanks to the scholarships that they receive from their adopted parents, the children from Adopt-a-Dream headed back to school as well-prepared as the other children to begin classes, with their school registration fees paid, and new uniforms, backpacks, and school supplies!

Although the program has grown substantially in the last year, it is still extremely important to us to keep the most unique and special aspects of Adopt-a-Dream alive, namely, the personalized, individual attention that each family receives and the close contact that they have with the program coordinator and the social worker. In order to do this, we are currently exploring the possibility of a full-time tutor and social worker dedicated solely to the children of Adopt-a-Dream.

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, debt 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 forty 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, please contact us:

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

contact@cenitecuador.org

(+593) 2-265-4260