Less work and more education for children in Quito

Now that daily life is returning to a degree of normality, following the COVID upheaval of the recent years, the markets of Southern Quito have also returned to the hustle and bustle of fruit and vegetable vendors selling produce from the mountainous agricultural areas surrounding Quito.

It’s here, in 4 markets of Southern Quito, that we find UBECI’s social workers and psychologists running their project dedicated to socially disadvantaged indigenous children.

In this latest report, I wanted to take a step back to provide a wider overview of the work carried out by our partner organisation UBECI in the markets of Sangolqui’, Turismo, Guamani’ and Chillogallo and the results they continue to achieve since starting their work in 2005.

The Project currently helps around 600 children and their families across the four markets where UBECI works. These are children who mainly used to work or continue to work alongside their parents at their fruit and vegetable stands. UBECI’s support helps the children access social and emotional care and education. UBECI also recognizes the importance of whole family care in order to effect lasting change for the children, and extends its support to their parents as well.

UBECI’s "Street Outreach Programme" playgroups run from 8:30 until 12 each morning and from 2 to 5.30 in the afternoon. UBECI decided not to work more than one day a week in each market, as the children working at the market change on a daily basis (the children often work in a different market every day). UBECI has therefore consciously decided to focus on helping one group of children. One day a week UBECI staff come together at UBECI’s office to discuss the results of the previous week’s work and the specific programme for the weeks to come.

The overall aims of the programme are as follows:

1. Getting to know and understand the social/family environment of the children

2. Constantly developing and evolving a plan of action to help the children and their families in the areas of prevention, education, health

3. Arranging workshops on the subjects of children’s rights, physical and sexual abuse, prevention, and how to act in an emergency.

UBECI’s activities include:

· Art workshops - to allow children to develop their creativity, coordination and experience positive moments in their life

· Talks on values - convey to the children the values needed to live with each other and foster positive relationships

· Talks on health matters - explain to the children and their families the importance of preventative health measures, such as good nutrition and hygiene, which became all the more important during the pandemic

· Recreational activities - to give the children time and space to play

The social workers assisted by volunteers play with the children at the market, fostering their creative abilities. The social workers and psychologists provide assistance to the children and their families on health issues and more difficult topics such as sexual and physical abuse, as well as psychological support. The social workers also help families to register their children with the state, find a school place for them and help them access medical care.

UBECI encourages the children to open up, gain confidence and talk to staff and volunteers about their problems. Only through the efforts of UBECI do these children often get access to urgently needed medical or psychological assistance or the opportunity of receiving an education.

In addition to the “market mornings”, the social worker, the psychologist and the project coordinator spend time working directly with the families of the children, encouraging and helping them to fulfil their basic responsibilities as parents; sending the children to school, buying school materials and getting medical check-ups.

 After a number of years of constantly increasing school attendance levels, the impact of COVID and resulting further impoverishment of this group of society has unfortunately wiped out the progress made and led to increasing levels of school desertion. UBECI is playing an important role talking to the families to encourage continued school attendance by their children.

Over the last year UBECI has also implemented an educational programme for mothers to assist them in rebuilding their self-esteem and confidence in their abilities. Topics covered included how to make the right decisions, taking care of your emotional health, an appreciation for multiculturalism and maintaining their cultural identity.

UBECI has successfully

· established relationships with the children’s parents and obtained their commitment to enrol their children in school. The families that allow their children to attend school are able to demonstrate to the rest of the working community the positive effects that schooling has on their children, offering them a better quality of life today and in the future

· established and evolved an action plan for the education and recreation of children working in each market

· established relationships with organizations providing shelter for children and respective families in need

· provided educational workshops to groups of children at their work locations (markets) in order for them to be able to attend

At any one time UBECI will have five to ten volunteers from a variety of European countries and the US actively engaged in the Street Outreach Programme, helping the children with their homework, playing and singing with them, teaching them about basic hygiene and offering much needed attention. For the volunteers this is an opportunity to experience the country’s ‘real’ face through learning about the lives of these disadvantaged children, who in turn benefit enormously from the volunteers’ efforts.

Strengthening social skills for mothers and children and improving wellbeing was the main focus of the UBECI team during 2022. Helping them find hope and start making plans again, after two years of losses during a pandemic that hit the already poor UBECI families particularly hard.

UBECI has been working with the children and their mothers through the story telling project and the educational programme for mothers respectively, to assist them in rebuilding their self-esteem and confidence in their abilities. Topics covered included how to make the right decisions, taking care of your emotional health, an appreciation for multiculturalism and maintaining their cultural identity. They learnt about the existence of other cultures and languages in Ecuador and the need to respect other cultures and help preserve indigenous languages such as Kichwa.

In the playgroups at the markets UBECI has been using storytelling as an educational tool for the children, developing stories that the children can identify with, including situations from their daily lives and how to take decisions to resolve the typical challenges they face. The stories relate to aspects of their lives such as their ethnicity, roots, customs, and are aimed at strengthening their self-confidence, improving their relationship with their parents, teaching them to respect and appreciate their family and other children at school and in the playgroups.

The stories are designed to improve the children’s quality of life. The September story called ‘Knowing and taking care of my body’, for example, strengthens the relationship of the child with their body, empowering them to not allow others to touch them if they don’t want them to, making them aware of the limits others need to respect, and reducing the risk of sexual abuse. Other areas covered by means of storytelling included:

1. Leadership, focussing on values and self-confidence
2. Gender, focussing on legal and social equality
3. Education and multiculturalism, working on motor, socio-emotional and cognitive development
4. Recreation, foster voluntary participation as an individual right
5. Prevention, improving quality of life by encouraging preventative measures, particularly anti-COVID hygiene measures

The storytelling tool is just one way in which UBECI is helping poor children in the markets with their emotional and cognitive development. Mothers see the value in having their children attend the playgroups.

Wendy started participating in UBECI’s playgroups when she was 9 years of age as a vulnerable child whose parents were drug addicts and who was left with her sister in her grandmother’s care. UBECI’s help at the time was key to supporting her with her education, providing her with school supplies and uniforms, assisting with homework, and giving her emotional support. Wendy today is 24 years old, a well-balanced and emotionally stable young woman, who benefitted from the psychological support UBECI could provide. Her 3-year old daughter now participates in the UBECI playgroups at the market of Chillogallo.