Boy With a Ball or La Bola as we are called down here in Costa Rica took some important steps last week in our work in the precario or squatter's settlement called El Triangulo de la Solidaridad a few miles from our office.
Public schools started classes last week and the mother's of this precario when into a tizzy trying to gather the $100 or more necessary to buy all of the supplies and uniforms for their children to be able to go to school. School is so important. I know that statement may seem to be childish or overly simple, however, we are watching on a daily business as it seems that only those who go to school have any chance of making it out of this neighborhood of dirt floors and diseased soil, drug dealers, fear and hopelessness.
Costa Rica's average income is $6000 a year which is about 1/6th of what it is in the United States. The precario is even more dramatic in it's comparison to the average Costa Rican family. Family's probably struggle to make $1000-$1500 a year. (I will check on that in the next few weeks to confirm what that amount really is.) This income is made usually with the man of the house starting at 5 am and working on after dark six days of the week. Many families are in debt to the grocery stores for trying to buy rice and beans for their family.
In this economic situation, $100 for school for EACH child is impossible. Sadly, their child not being able to school is a life sentence of living in precarios.
We have made it a major focus to educate the young people and families on the importance of education. We have researched how to help kids who have dropped out get back in. So last week, when the moms began to crowd around us and beg for help with buying school supplies, we were kind of in no place to say no.
Unfortunately, as an organization, the last month was not a great one. We had no funds to put toward this. Many of us had even not received a full paycheck. However, it was impossible not to tell some of these moms that we would help...even out of our own nearly empty wallets.
As a last resort, I sent out an email update detailing the situation. I hoped one or two people might join in the fight and help us raise the $300 we needed to help these families. I was amazed by the response. One after another, emails came in. "We want to help." "Jamie, we will help." "We want to help." Individuals, couples, families, churches, organizations...one girl even put out a bulletin to her friends on My Space! (Thanks Annie!)
As a result, we have been able to expand our help in this situation. Team member Anna Currie and I had to hold back tears as Joanna, a mom of three, almost broke down when she saw us walk into her house with every thing her two boys would need to go to school the next day. She had probably given up hope. She couldn't stop thanking us and thanking God.
The week kept rolling. We had another installment of Soccer Night where a really healthy group of guys from a local church gather and invite all of the young guys from the precario to come and play soccer for two hours in an indoor arena. I will have to post about this seperately another day, however, it is so dramatic to watch these young guys from the precario sense that they belong with this healthy group of amazing kids. The mentoring dynamics that are happening in this situation are worth writing a book about.
Finally, the local church we have been helping in their response to young people held a youth camp and we helped staff it. We have been inviting two young people from the precario named Raquel and her cousin, Diana, to the youth group meetings lately. Raquel is the only person we have ever met in the precario who is graduated from high school and headed to the university. Our hope has been to surround her by some of the young women in the church youth group who go to the same university to help build a peer group around her to help support her and her family as they head into this new frontier of higher learning!
Their family is surprising considering their surroundings. They run a alterations business next door to their house. The father is a great father and the mom stays at home with the kids.
We are careful to focus on helping equip people within their situation for the most part. Taking a poor young person into middle class houses can sometimes hurt them more than help them. They can get awed by pretty furniture and big portions of food and feel hopeless in the situation. There is another way to do it where they are instilled with hope by the experience. We have hoped that this would happen with Raquel and Diana. With this in mind, we invited the two to the camp.
The two girls looked uncomfortable at times. They certainly had to face significant fears. Yet as we all drove back across the city to take them home last night in a bus filled with 60 Costa Rican youth, I could not help but be content.
It seems to be working for these girls...they are gaining strength in believing that they can make it our of the precario. They are gaining interest in their studies and building friendships that they are using to help give them a map of what they will need to have and be in order to live the lives they could not have even dreamt of before.
No comments:
Post a Comment