Education for 250 working children in Chiapas

We are now finishing, in Santo Domingo, the identity project.

This project seeks that working children talk, reflect and recognize their individual and collective identity so that they can have a critical vision of their reality and their history. This individual and collective identity focuses on being a child, indigenous, and worker. We believe that understanding their identity they get to know a little more about their reality and they will have more elements to reflect, understand their life, and understand why what happens in it happens. Finally, we consider that it is a core process and that they claim their identity, what represents them, what they consider to be theirs and, if they consider something theirs, they demand and defend it. It is from this level that the perspective of human rights, right enjoyed and not enjoyed, is addressed from Lekil Kuxlejal (Good Life) or Mauk Lekil Kuxlejal (not good life).

This project is to be carried out so that together with children we can take a tour of the collective history of the indigenous families we accompany. And so girls and boys can locate the present reality throughout this history and can question and understand the origin of some of the inequalities or situations they live, be they positive or negative. Moms, dads and grandmothers have a lot of wisdom through oral tradition: history, stories, legends and others, which can contribute a lot to these activities. Knowing the history will also allow knowing the present of the girls, boys, their families and of San Cristóbal. Because knowing a little more of reality, children will have more elements to reflect and understand their lives, and understand situations that they live.

On December 8, 2018, in the city of San Cristóbal, the XI Encounter of working children  "My world is giant", was held. In it, 19 girls and boys between 4 and 16 years of age met with the objective of strengthening the organization of working children for decent work.

During the day, through various games and activities, the girls and boys, from the different markets of the city, met and described their meeting and work spaces and exchanged learnings and experiences.

Being able to recognize themselves as working children was one of the most positive results of the day, identifying with the slogans of this group and sharing their experiences. Among the things they shared, we would like to highlight:

Child 1: we meet at the kiosk in Santo Domingo, in the museum or in the church or in the corridors, and when we meet, we talk about discrimination against indigenous people, and respect for women.

Child 2: we meet in Melel, Xojobal in learning circles, we learn about caxlanes (non indigenous, white people), decent work and the stories of our families. Our group is called Strong working children.

Child 3: They teach us not to be violent, and treat others well, we paint and play, we watch movies and we learn about respect for women and indigenous people.

These spaces of encounter and reflection allow children to know that they are not alone in their realities, that there are others who share their experiences, their knowledge and their struggles, making possible the collective organization and the claim for rights.