Sponsor's update from Tarija, Bolivia

Child sponsorship update from the SOS Children's Village Tarija, Bolivia from Winter 2007/2008

Dear sponsors,

It’s a great pleasure for us to write you once more and let you know about the SOS Children’s Villages Bolivia’s progress during this year. We thank you very much for your kind support, which allowed us to work with more than 13000 beneficiaries in this year, from which, more than 1,400 live in a SOS Children’s Village.

During this year, the community of the village went through a nice experience with the creation of a new family conformed by five children and the responsible person for the family, Erlinda. Now, the Village of Tarija has 127 children and adolescents, who live in 14 families, with the joy of welcoming 26 new children during the last months. We had infantile welcome parties organized with enthusiasm by the children and their mothers. This is the case of two children, one 2 year old boy and one 5 month old boy; they are children of an adolescent mother (whose whereabouts is unknown) and they were offered “on sale” more than once by her. Finally, she abandoned them with their grandmother, who had 7 children by her own and lived in poverty conditions. She also wanted to “give” them to someone in her home town so the authorities of the town decided to take the children to the Village so they can have love and protection and develop healthy. Now, the older child, in just two months, not only achieved the right nutritional level for his age but also got a right emotional stability and balance. The younger child is very happy when his mother holds him in her arms. They both don’t have that taciturn look they had when they first arrived to the village and that’s a wonderful experience.

Health has been a primordial area. The mothers carried out, as part of their routine, the attendance of their children to the Healthy Child medical checks with positive growth and nutritional results. The decision of the mothers to do a campaign for the Chagas Disease Control among their children was proper since they found out that 15 children have that disease (children who live in the countryside before) and now they are following a specific medical treatment.

The school performance was acceptable, according to the mothers. They were also concerned about some children who had some problems and they found new strategies to improve their performance with suitable educational and school support. Several outstanding students participated in math and scientific Olympiads organised in their schools.

Fabian, a 10 year old boy, was elected as deputy in a departmental assembly of Leader children and adolescents to elaborate a proposal for the “Constituent Assembly”; he participated in debates and the national parliament. Fabian’s participation was outstanding with his proposal of no violation of the children’s rights and the fundamental right of having a family.

Youths like Laura, Elizabeth, Gonzalo, Elena and Ramon organized the children and adolescents’ participation at a national level and in an active way in the march and diffusion of the Network against the Children and Adolescents’ Sexual Violence “Basta Ya”. This network outlines the change of the childhood and adolescence’s protection policy against different ways of violence.

Children's sports and careers

Regarding sports, the indoor soccer team got the second place at a local level in the Infantile Category. In basketball, the girls’ team was the champion of the 3x3 championship in the Infantile Category. Vanesa, a 13 year old girl, is part of the mini-basketball selection team of Tarija and she travels and represents the department of Tarija in national championships.

The girls of the Sub-14 category got the first place in a local championship. However, the sport where the children have an excellent performance at a national level is Tae-kwon-do. Eleven children form the Village participated in an international championship in October.

Regarding arts, children are good at drawing and painting but they also are good at dancing. They belong to the “Amistad” dance group, 16 children participate and they already had some successful performances in local events.

Forty six youths are studying now different technical careers. Six youths already graduated from their careers as Hairdressers and Integral Beauticians, Agro ecologists and Planner Draftsmen in Civil Constructions. Other youths are about to finish their careers by the end of this year.

Now, two youths are doing their military service. We have 23 youths in the Advising and Independization Stage. They already finished their technical careers, has a stable emotional life and an acceptable labour performance- Five youths are thinking of becoming independent this year. The three youths who are studying university careers (business administration, civil engineering and biochemistry) got good results during the first term. Two youths opened their own businesses: a Graphic Design workshop and a Marketing and Publicity agency; and one youth has her own restaurant which allows her to improve her income.

Education and skills for children's future

SOCIAL CENTRE
Nowadays, about 2,000 children and 1560 families are participating of the Family Strengthening Programme; they attend the Social Centre and 104 Community Houses that are located in the poorest neighborhood of the City.

Together with all of them we had many achievements during this year such as the decrease of the children’s malnutrition rates, the improvement of their development levels and the knowledge and demand of their rights’ fulfillment.

Regarding mothers, we got high self-esteem and auto-appraisal levels in them as the base of their personal and labor growth. The greater participation of women in different areas is allowing them to improve their life quality and to feel better as women. We had several activities with the families during this year in order to get a greater integration between their members and a greater equity in the roles of the family and to improve their responsibility levels to their children. On the other hand, the community work allowed us to have the Family Committees (organised groups of participant parents) recognised in their communities as leader groups for the defense of the children’s rights by contributing with their community’s growth.

SOS SCHOOL
The school has 630 students and about 370 families. From the Annual Work Plan, we have:
The Implementation of the Intra-Family Violence’s Prevention Project, which started with some workshops about Upbringing rules and Family values, festivals addressed to the promotion of the children’s values, rights and duties as well as activities addressed to strengthen the family bonds like the “Traditional Games Festival” with the participation of parents and children and the Firebrands March where about 80% of the families participated to celebrate the third anniversary of the School.

Likewise, we started the “Healthy School” Project through the programming of the students’ affiliation to the Free Health Insurance, which includes promotion and prevention activities and the attention of special odontological cases.

On the other hand, school is an important space to identify risky situations that affect children, mother or family as a whole. We could see the solidary work of the Family Committees who helped a family, not only with the cancellation of a debt they had because of the illness and death of one of their relatives, but also with the collection of food to help them. Likewise, they helped Mrs. Maria, a grandmother who supports her grandchild all by herself and who had a sight surgery. Finally, with the work of the Facilitator Teachers, who started the domiciliary visits to identify families in risk, we helped to solve health problems of three mother women and eights students.

To write down this lines causes, in one hand, grief feelings because of the social exclusion environment the participant families from the school live in and, in the other one, optimistic feelings because we are there and because of the little and significant actions we are developing to power and strengthen their communities for them to assume their co-responsibility in the near future.

Lucy Maldonado
Directora Aldeas Infantiles SOS Tarija