The Centre for the Working Girl (CENIT) provides opportunities and hope for hundreds of Quito’s working children every year.

Sadly, however, there are many more children in and around Quito who are forced to work long hours and in dangerous conditions to supplement their minimal income.

Sonrisa realises this and hopes in future to be able to fund some of the many other projects run by individuals and non-governmental organisations in the city.

Ecuadorian couple Monica and Byron, who live opposite CENIT and house many CENIT volunteers through their Homestay Ecuador programme, are acutely aware of the need to extend services for working children beyond the confines of South Quito.

The couple started working with CENIT several years ago, but in recent times they have focussed their attention on developing schemes that take them to the city boundaries, where facilities are lacking and families are desperately poor.

Byron and Monica with daughter Najat and nephew Henry

The couple agreed to talk about their work with Ecuador’s working children:

You’re still very much a part of CENIT, but what are these other projects you’re doing?

We’re currently working with Ubeci to develop an assistance programme for the children outside of the city of Quito, where there is countryside. There we have an assistance programme offering educational and social support for the children of this community.

Why did you take projects for working children out of the city?

Well, we have always realised that most of the children who are on the streets of Quito are from rural areas and so we decided to take our projects to them.

What we hope to achieve is to break through a cycle of negativity that may of these young people are caught in. They believe that as children of the countryside they are never going to have the same opportunities and luck as the children of the city.

The fact is, they’re not going to have the same luck if they don’t study and they don’t prepare themselves for when they want to come to the city to find work. They have the same possibilities and capabilities as the people who study here in Quito.

What does your assistance programme entail?

We try to focus greatly on self-esteem, pronunciation of Spanish, spelling and grammar. One of our programmes is designed to develop a programme of self-esteem through art, for example.

We have an educational psychologist working on the programme. She teaches techniques of study to the children and adolescents who come to the project. We also give classes in physical expression, reading, writing, public speaking and English as well as giving the children valuable recreational time.

Right now we’re undertaking a summer project and we have 78 children.

Is all your work in rural areas now?

No – in the southern-most tip of Quito we’re developing a programme of self-esteem and motivation for children who enrol in studies with us. There we have a social worker: she helps to make contacts so that we ensure needy children enrol in the study programmes. She makes contact with hospitals, hostels, refuge centres for children and their mothers who have suffered abuse. She also looks in places of rehabilitation for women who are drug addicts, or women who are pregnant and have no place to sleep.

Monica is the co-ordinator of the work on the street and of the countryside project and so she spends her time working in the street and the country. Our educational psychologist works with her to design appropriate activities for the children.

What’s the most rewarding part of your work?

It’s interesting to see how children start to feel better within themselves and to see changes. It’s great for us to see our work having an effect.

What’s next?

This week we’re going to have a meeting with the people who work in the organisation to see if it would be possible to do work at night in the streets, because there are quite a lot of children in the street at night, coming and going, sleeping, cleaning cars.

First we want to start in the Mariscal zone and in the South of Quito, and later in the North of the city.

Monica and I really want to do this work but first we have to see if we have enough money to cover the costs in order to pay the people who are going to do the work at night. We also have to work out what kind of proposal we’re going to make in order to reduce the number of children who are on the streets at night in the city of Quito.