Helping Families Break Cycles of Violence

As the holiday season is in full tilt, those of us at Fundación Junto Con Los Niños (JUCONI) cannot help but take a moment to appreciate a recent date dear to our hearts: October 19. This year JUCONI celebrated 20 years with the communities we serve and it would not have been possible without your continued generous support.

To commemorate such a momentous birthday for JUCONI, we decided to spend an evening with community members and those active with our organization to celebrate our accomplishments and look to the future in Guayaquil. Among the highlights from our night together was laughter as an improv group performed a show with some of JUCONI´s kids. Between laughs and stories, the children were able to see the work done by Club de Arte in their most recent project regarding the world around them. For almost two months, children from JUCONI´s Club de Arte constructed small elements that later came to represent how they viewed the world.  The exhibition was open to the public for the following three days so that people visiting Guayaquil would be able to see what incredible capabilities the children have.

It was also the opportunity for Santiago to share his story with JUCONI children. Santiago graduated from the JUCONI process more than ten years ago and now works with Ecuador´s navy. He too wanted to show the importance of hard work and explained his upbringing that also involved child labor. Santiago focused in his speech on being positive and goal-setting and now is a constant talking point in the communities. Santiago is a new role model that we were so proud to introduce the children to.

We at JUCONI know that the fight continues to end child labor and domestic violence in Guayaquil but we were glad we were able to acknowledge and celebrate the hard work of 2015. We could not be more grateful to have you on our side and we only wish that you could have celebrated with us too.

Thank you again for your support.

Sincerely,

Joseph Amiri