Help marginalized Mexican children and teenagers

Greetings Global Givers!  It is the beginning of school year and we have amazing results and great news to share with all of you!

As we come to the end of our program in the state of Coahuila, we would like to share testimonies from different perspectives that capture the essence of the efforts carried out:

“This program has helped us value what we have and what we don´t have. And to transform bad situations… suppose somebody tries to offend me, I will try and find something positive out of that” (Girl, 6^th grade)

“There are types of violence that I did not know existed, and I finally learned about their existence here, because we recognize being physically hit or getting a bruise as violence, but no, even words, psychological violence, economic violence was new to me. Now the majority of us homemakers work out of the house as well and sometimes when they get home they will ask, What did you do?; well then, Who cooked?, Who did everything else?, I sometimes say to my husband, lets change roles…we can ask to be respected and valued for what we are doing, our eyes were finally opened wide.” (Mother of a 6^th grade student)

“On a personal level it slowly walked me through aspects that I needed to reinforce, to speak directly… I first started with myself, trying not to mix in personal issues, and it helped me very much, in my home, with my family, with myself, it helped me reinforce my own resilience…what we try to encourage in children, I also work on it on a personal level.” (Teacher, participant during 3 years of program)

In our previous report we shared with you our results in numbers, which exceeded our initial expectations, now we include the final conclusions.

Overall, the program was well accepted and well-liked by the teachers that participated; it also generated an environment for reflection and empathy during the sessions. Students were satisfied with the program and everything they learned during its development. The workshops were also well received by parents because of the topics that were approached and the opportunity to share experiences and encourage freedom of speech. Lastly, students expressed an interest to continue learning about: self-awareness, goal achievements and capacity building.

In other news, we are halfway through our program “I want to, I can… think like a scientist”, in the state of Tlaxcala, and we are glad to share the following numbers that indicate the success of our efforts so far:

• Elementary school children now have a 70% interest in learning about Chemistry; 92.2% of them want to continue their studies and become professionals, 93% of them are very happy that they are participating in the program.
• School teachers reported that 75% of their students have presented positive changes since the program started.
• Parents expressed their interest and participating in this type of activity again, since they were very pleased with the conferences they attended.

These are just some examples of the work we continue to do to improve the lives of marginalized children through education. Next time, we will share more results and other programs that are currently being carried out.

We are very grateful for the continuous support from the Global Giving! Please stay tuned for more upcoming news!