Most international volunteers who work at the Centre for the Working Girl (CENIT) will take part in the street outreach programme, which takes educational and hygiene resources to markets and commerical zones across the South of Quito.

It is in these areas that large groups of working children spend their day eking out a living by shoe shining, selling small items or working on stalls.

On this site you will find regular updates from volunteers working on the street outreach projects.

Summer 2006 update

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 two to 13 years of age which is a big age gap that can cause problems for those who are ten 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 ten 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 three 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.”

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.”