Child Protection Mexico Project #11133

Education for 250 working children in Chiapas

by Melel Xojobal A.C.

Education for 250 working children in Chiapas

Project Report | Aug 23, 2017
2017 UPDATE

By Luis Flores | Fundraiser Melel Xojobal

Annual Birth Certificate Campaign

Starting in February and continuing through the beginning of May, we implemented our annual birth certificate campaign. The goal is to support indigenous families of the city to acquire birth certificates for their daughters and sons.

Chiapas is the Mexican state with the highest percentage of people that do not have their birth certificates and more and more children each year are being born and not getting this vital document. This problematic situation reaches into the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas.

There are two major causes of this problem: many people in San Cristobal lack the ability to read which keeps them from knowing the importance of the birth certificate and the ways they can obtain one; and the language barrier between the Spanish-speaking employees in the registration office and the indigenous-language-speaking people of Chiapas.

The first part of the campaign consisted of placing information throughout the different markets in the city: Mercado Municipal Tielemans, Mercado de Artesanías ("hand-made crafts" in Spanish) de Santo Domingo; Mercado Popular del Sur (Merposur), and the city center. We placed posters with the most relevant information in highly visible sites and walked through the markets with loudspeakers passing out informational leaflets. Both posters and leaflets were in Spanish and Tsotsil, the most common native language spoken in San Cristobal.

Then, we asked five public radio stations to each broadcast two advertisements about the campaign (one in Spanish and the other in Tsotsil): Radio Evangélica, Radio Esperanza Miel, Radio Católica Tepeyac, Radio Ciudadana Botan Zapata, and Radio Libertad. We also gave live interviews on Radio Esperanza Miel and Radio Activa; Radio Activa being one of the most popular radio stations in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

On February 17 and March 10, we gave informative meetings for families at the Melel Xojobal facilities in San Cristobal. During the meetings, we informed the attendees about the requirements to get the birth certificates, the reasons why we started the campaign (government ineffectiveness and the importance of the birth certificate as a door to other rights, such as education and health), and to inform them of our intention to call each family to see if they registered their child for school after receiving the birth certificate.

After the informative meetings, the families gathered the appropriate documents and delivered them to us so that we could make final adjustments and pass them on to the registration office.

We have forged a link with a government employee at the registration office, so every year she comes to our facilities to deliver the birth certificates. She gives us a date when she can deliver the certificates and we contact the families so they can come to Melel Xojobal and pick up their documents. This year we had two delivery days: April 24 and May 26.

In total, we were able to help 82 children obtain their birth certificates.

Strengthening working children’s knowledge and social abilities

As you already know, the educational sessions that we give to working children at their places of work form one of the pillars of Melel Xojobal’s work.

At this point in the year, we have given at total of 76 educational sessions with an average duration of two hours each, to a total of 194 working children.

These educational sessions are part of the Learning Circles we do each year. “Learning Circles” are the sets of educational sessions that each have a specific theme and purpose.

The three Learning Circles completed up to this point in the year are:

a) See, Think and Act with a Focus on Family: These educational sessions took place in Melel Xojobal spaces from February to March. In this project, the children analyzed their current situation with a special focus on their families. These sessions had a total of 20 participants.

b) Our Face: Carried out at Merposur (Mercado Popular del Sur--Popular Market of the south-) from February to March. These sessions allowed working children to talk, reflect, and recognize their individual and collective identity in order to see themselves as social actors in their environment. These sessions had a total of 52 participants.

c) Our Space and Its History: Completed in the city center, near the main Cathedral, from February to April. In this project, we shared historical elements of our region in order to give the participants information that would help them understand their present situation and to continually identify whether their rights are being respected or not. This project had a total of 107 participants.

The Learning Circles that are still in progress are:

a) Education about mediums of communication: Started at Merposur in May. Up to this point we have given six sessions to a total of 36 participants. The purpose of this project is to teach children how to critically analyze and better judge information coming from mass mediums of communication (mainly television).

b) Encouraging children to be human rights defenders through political formation: Started at Melel Xojobal in March, we have given nine sessions to a total of 13 participants to date. In these sessions, we teach critical thinking skills so that the children may individually detect human rights violations and take a stance on the issues.

In addition to these projects, we have an educational accompaniment program, where we work with 30 girls and boys who are at risk of dropping out of school for various reasons. Within this program, we create a strong bond with each girl and boy in order to help them to surpass the educational and personal obstacles that affect their ability to stay in school.

Forum: Childhood, Protagonism, and the Right to a Good Life (Lekil Kuxlejal)

As we mentioned at the beginning of the year, we are celebrating our 20th anniversary. As part of the celebration, we facilitated a two-day forum on August 11 and 12. The presenters were adults with specialties in infancy and childhood issues from Mexico, Latin America, and Europe, in addition to children participants from different organizations in Mexico and Latin America (Melel Xojobal, MOLACNATs, La Veleta y la Antena, and Chantik Taj Tajinkutik). The forum created intentional spaces for dialogue between adults and children as equals.

We believe that children, as with any other person regardless of his or her age, have their own advantages and disadvantages, therefore their condition as children cannot be an obstacle to their full participation in both the public and private spheres. The construction of spaces of co-participation between adults and children, such as our forum, allows for a continuous exchange of experiences and ideas that creates a substantial amount of knowledge and learning.

You can watch the recorded live-feed of the event through the following YouTube links:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzqG0wSwOMc

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6YG_hdVYg

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpn_RaLiOGw&t=2490s

We are currently compiling a video that will show the most important issues discussed at the event. We will share it with you once it is complete.

Melel Xojobal is ever thankful for the support we have received from our donors. We are working hard to reduce social inequity here in San Cristóbal and in Chiapas; it is good to know that there are many people in the world with the same mindset. Children are not the future but the present, and they have the right to participate in every decision making process, from within the family to public decision and policy making.

Please visit our social network pages and keep checking back--we're working on translating our website into English!

Thank you!

Kind regards,

Links:

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May 25, 2017
Results of the first 4 months of 2017

By Luis Flores | Fundraiser

Infancia Trabajadora Catedral-Centro

Dear Globalgiving donors,

Through this report we present to you our results of the first 4 months of 2017.

- Birth Certificate Annual Campaign

From February to the beginning of May, we launched the annual birth certificate campaign. The goal is to give a hand to indigenous families of the city, so their daughters and sons can obtain his/her birth certificate.

Chiapas is the state of Mexico with the highest percentage of people that don’t have his/her birth certificate and more and more kids are being born and not getting this vital document. This problematic situation reached the city of San Cristobal de Las Casas.

We face two of the causes of this problem: the incapacity to read of some people that block them to know the importance of the birth certificate and the way they could get it; and the language barrier cause the service at the public office is made in Spanish and lot of people at San Cristobal speak another indigenous language.

The campaign was promoted at markets and public spaces where children commonly work. What we did was walking on the street and with a speaker let everyone around know about the campaign. Also, we established direct conversation among people that show some interest and explained them what they needed to know. Lastly, we distributed flyers all over that explained how the campaign was going to happen.

We received persons through all these months at our installations. We explained the procedures in order to obtain the birth certificate and accompanied them till the end of it. Our staff includes tsotsil and tseltal speakers, the two most common languages at Chiapas.

We have forged a strong link with the civil registry office of the city and at 24 April one public official came at our installations and delivered all the birth certificates processed. We have achieved, at the moment, a total of 58 birth certificates. It is worth mentioning that, although our campaing is over, we continue this support and accompaniment all the year.

- Strengthening working children’s knowledge and social abilities

As you already know, the educative sessions we give to working children at their working places are one of the pillars of Melel Xojobal’s work.

At this point of the year, we have given at total of 49 educative sessions with an average duration of two hours each one, to a total of 179 working children.

This 49 educative sessions are part of the three Learning Circles we have performed. We remind you that we call “Learning Circle” at the set of educative sessions that has a specific thematic and purpose.

The three Learning Circles gave until now are:

a) See, Think and Act From the Family: This educative sessions took place at Melel Xojobal installations. With the project, the children made a critical analysis of their present on the basis of their own family.

b) Our Face: Conducted at Mercado Popular del Sur –Merposur- (Popular Market of the South). These sessions allowed working children to talk, reflect and recognize his/her individual and collective identity in order to see themselves as social actors of their environment.

c) Our Space and Its History. Completed at the center of the city, besides our Cathedral. With this project, we shared historical elements of our region in order to give them useful information that help them understand their present situation and to distinguish if their rights are being respected or not.

Besides this, we are working closely with 30 working children in order they successfully conclude his/her school year. We support them with a scholarship and provide them with the specific guidance they need. We have the best hopes on them.

- Thank you!

All Melel Xojobal is thankful with the support gave it by our donors. We are working hard hoping to reduce the social inequity, it is good to know that there are lots of people in the world with that idea in mind. And remember, children are not the future but the present and they have the right to participate in every decision making processes, since inside the family until public decision and policy making.

Don’t forget to visit our social networks and hopefully soon we will have or website translated into English.

Kind Regards

Luis Flores

Fundraiser

Infancia Trabajadora Merposur

Campana Actas

Infancia Trabajadora Melel

Equipo Melel

Links:

Visit our social network!

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Feb 24, 2017
Beginning 2017 with the right foot

By Luis Flores | Fundraiser

Dear donors,

This year is going to be one of big emotions at Melel Xojobal.

The reason?

We are celebrating our XX Anniversary, twenty years giving our best in order to encourage childhood to know better themselves, keep studying, claim their rights and change their project of life.

For that, we are organizing different events that we’ll be sharing with you.

First of all, we are almost starting our every year campaign “Right to Identity”. Last campaign was a total success: we achieved 110 birth certificates, and this year we hope to improve that number.

Right now, we are promoting the campaign and disseminating information about it all over San Cristobal de las Casas. We have flyers in Spanish and Tzotzil (the main indigenous language spoken in the region) that we have been spreading in every corner of our city, focusing in locations that we already identified as places where a lot of persons don´t have their birth certificates.

Besides, we are broadcasting radio announcements in Spanish and Tzotzil on different radio stations that reach a big audience of the population we work with. Most of them are indigenous, local and social radio stations that now are our friends and every year help us in this task of promotion, such as Radio Libertad, Radio Votán Zapata, Radio Ciudadana and Radio Centinela.

Also, our activities in order to help the childhood to keep studying, claim their rights and change their project of life, have already started. These activities are basically educative sessions that we called Learning Circles, aimed to indigenous working children in their own workplaces.

The Learning Circles are one of the main pillars of Melel Xojobal and have the objectives:

Improve children skills and knowledge in order to help them in the school, basically reading and writing skills, and mathematics knowledge.
To enable the childhood the exercise of their rights. We intend that children see themselves as a subject of law and know their rights.
To propitiate bonds between children, so they could together recognize their situations, challenges, risks and opportunities.

It is worth mentioning, these children are not being exploited, they work with their families in order to contribute the household expenditure. Which is good and bad: good because the majority doesn’t belong to criminal networks that use them for profit interest, and bad because the parents want their children to continue the business family and they do not consider useful the formal education.

For this reason, we also have a workshop with the parents in order to show them the importance of the right of education and let their children improve their life project.

Finally, we are organizing the main event of our XX Anniversary that is going to happen by the end of the present year: a forum named “Childhood and Social Justice”. We pretend to create a place of encounter between local, national and international experts in themes of childhood, authorities, and working children from Mexico and abroad. We want to become a megaphone for the voice of childhood, we believe in the importance of children’s participation in the exchange of ideas and decision-making processes.

We will keep you updated through all the year.

Best regards

Luis Flores

Links:

Search for us on Google

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