Education for 250 working children in Chiapas

As you know, the educational sessions that we give to working children in the markets of San Cristóbal form one of the pillars of Melel Xojobal’s work.

We began this year's activities on February 21. Since then, we have been implementing the project “Getting to know our History” with girls and boys who work at the José Castillo Tiélemans market. 26 girls and 19 boys are participating in the project, all between the ages of 1 and 13 years old with the average level of education being between grades 1 and 6 of primary school. The objective of this project is to recognize the individual and collective identities of working indigenous boys and girls through their family history. So far, we have completed 23 educational sessions where the participants have learned about the history of San Cristóbal and written short stories about their own personal history.

In the group “Learning Circles” at the Melel offices, we have implemented 5 educational session to date, with 6 girls and 5 boys between 5 and 15 years old participating. The educational level of the participants ranges between grades 3 and 7. We are also implementing the “Getting to know our History” project with the Learning Circles group; currently the boys and girls are learning about the history of San Cristóbal de las Casas.

In the Southern Popular Market (MERPOSUR), we are completing a participatory diagnostic about the Right to Education. We have currently completed 25 sessions with 24 girls and 20 boys participating, all between the ages of 5 and 13 and an educational level between 1^st and 6^th grade. In the sessions the participants have discussed their fears, dreams, and what makes them happy or sad at school.

At the same time, during the month of April we visited 9 scholarship recipients in their homes to continue monitoring their educational and family situations. In these visits we were encouraged to find that the girls, boys, and their families are very aware of the importance of staying in school, even though they face many difficulties, such as: falling behind in coursework because classes aren’t given in their native language, school expenses (such as school uniforms, textbooks, notebooks, shoes, etc.) are high, and in many cases, they do not have anyone at home to help them with their homework.

Links:

• http://www.melelxojobal.org.mx