Ciudad del niño Don Bosco (Don Bosco Children's City)

The Ciudad del Niño works in a four step process to bring kids from the street to independent life. It integrates shelter, education, job training, and a very interesting program for the mothers of street kids. It serves hundreds of boys and is clearly the most important program for street kids in León, Mexico's fifth largest city.

After meeting the child on the street, outreach workers invite him to the night shelter. It is a house in the center of León, close to where most street kids hang out, with open doors and few rules. Its most important function is to motivate the boy to leave the street, so after a few weeks of sleeping at the shelter, staff ask the boy whether he would like to live someplace better. This stage serves 80 boys.

When the boy decides he wants a more stable life, he moves on to the second shelter. Here (a different house in a suburb of León) he learns to live with others, he gets tutoring, learns to break the habits of the street, and prepares for a new life. This is a transitory stage that can last from a week to a year.

When the boy is ready, he moves to the Ciudad, a large hacienda in the countryside near León. In this huge house, boys live as long as they need to. They participate in job training workshops (carpentry, electricity, art, computers, etc), go to a formal school (on the grounds), get three meals a day, and go to church (the directors of the Ciudad are Silesian Fathers). The process is flexible, and can head toward independence or back to the boy’s family.

The last stage is a house for teenagers, a transition to live on one’s own. Though on the grounds of the Ciudad, it is set apart, and the young men spend most of their day in the city, working or studying.

In the Summer of 2001, a tragedy beset the Ciudad, when the dormitory burned down in an electrical fire. Fortunately, the children were at lunch, and there were no victims. Unfortunately, half of the bedrooms were destroyed, and the others are now overflowing.

The program requires a huge budget, and depends on a three woman fundraising team. The Ciudad receives donations from hundreds of benefactors, some who give as little as US$1 a month, but all of whom get a birthday card and regular reports.

Staff are very proud of their work with families. This effort begins the day the boy comes to the emergency shelter, when a social worker visits the last house where he lived to tell his family about the Ciudad. The social worker also explains what life on the street is like, and how it is dangerous, and how the Ciudad will provide other options. The point of this visit is to make a connection, not to resolve problems.

When the boy moves to the second house, the social worker and the child invite his family to come to the shelter. When they come (escorted by a social worker), mothers are invited to take a class in sewing, first aid, or cooking. Many mothers want to learn the skills, so it guarantees that they will come to the house every two weeks.

When the boy moves to the Ciudad, the mother’s classes also move there. Now, the program is a “School for mothers,” where they meet twice a month with other mothers to talk about their spiritual and material needs. A psychologist conducts the classes. After school, mothers have a moment to talk with their sons -- during the previous months, they have had little contact, but the boys have watched their mothers come and go, and have begun to wonder if there is more love and commitment than they had thought.

When the boys have been at the Ciudad three years, their mothers join a “family reintegration” group. The process is no longer therapeutic, but very concrete, founded on problem solving. During this time, the mothers have come to depend on each other -- on one case, when a mother lamented that she had no money for the bus fare, the rest of the mothers pitched in to get her to class. In almost every case, once the mother has finished this class, her child successfully returns home.

Mothers who live far from León come once a year for an 8-hour workshop.

Ciudad del Niño Don Bosco
San Juan Crisostomo # 1102
Sta. Rosa Plan de Ayala. León, Gto.
México

tel (477) 7 48 84 55

P. FRANCISCO GONZÁLEZ ROQUE sdb
correo electronico:
director@ninosdonbosco.org
promocion@ninosdonbosco.org
 
pagina web:
www.ninosdonbosco.org

Family Program: Gloria Macias, glomacias@yahoo.com.mx