Ediac (Spaces for Integral Development)
Ediac was founded in 1993 to serve kids in La Merced, the largest market in Mexico and perhaps the world; it emerged from the generation of street educators who also created El Caracol and Ednica. Though it began to work with street kids, it soon discovered that child prostitution was actually the worst problem in the neighborhood. According to Ediac Director Norma Negrete, La Merced has a history of 400 years of trade, and the sex trade has always been there.
As Ediac began to think about the problems of young prostitutes, it realized that the methodology developed to help street kids was actually for street boys; it didn’t really work for girls. Girls faced dangers that street educators were unprepared to address: as waitresses in restaurants or bars, or as maids in hotels, they were exposed to sexual exploitation. This environment leads to child prostitution, an institution in which large sectors of the community participate. Ediac resolved to change this environment.
In 1996, Ediac sponsored research on child prostitution, and quickly discovered that La Merced was not a poor neighborhood. In fact, millions of pesos passed through it each day. However, for a girl, sex was one of the few ways to get access to this money. This research resulted in the publication of “The Other Side of the Street,” a fantastic book now available in English (write Ediac to buy a copy).
Research continues to be fundamental for Ediac. It tries to integrate the academic and the grass roots, based on the model of Cecría and other Brazilian NGOs.
Based on this research, in 1997 Ediac created the “Club Mechita” (Mechita is the diminutive of “Merced,” but it also refers to the wick of a candle). It is explicitly a “club,” not a “program” -- which is to say that the girls and boys take ownership of the space, and see belonging to the club as a source of prestige. Each “associate” receives a membership card and various privileges: to eat at the club, to invite friends to join, to get help with homework, to participate in the movie club, and to get psychological help for them and their families.
Outreach workers don’t invite kids to join the club -- that’s the work of club associates. Instead, outreach workers organize the community and educate it about child prostitution. They speak with the hotel and bar owners, the taxi divers and waiters who put johns in touch with pimps. They talk with the police officers who accept bribes. In each case, they try to show how “innocent” acts lead to the exploitation of young girls. Ediac’s most successful strategy has been to find and train community leaders, generally mothers and shopkeepers, who lead the fight against child prostitution.
Both the Club Mechita and the street thus become spaces that, instead of promoting prostitution, prevent it.
Within the club, educators and counselors use the Italian methodology of the “therapeutic community,” originally designed to work with drug addicts. In the Club, positive peer pressure keeps girls out of prostitution, and supports resilience for girls who want to get out of it. Ediac would like to systematize this method, but it has neither the time or the money to do so.
Ediac believes that school plays a vital role in offering options to prostitution. For many families in La Merced, school is a financial burden (books, uniforms, etc), which distances a girl from her basic role: to earn money. Ediac shows girls and families how to balance work and school, tries to change the way families see school, and to transform how schools see working girls. One of their most successful strategies has been to encourage family participation in schools -- today, 75% of the families of club associates volunteers in their children’s schools. Often, this process requires a contract, signed by Ediac and the parents.
Club Mechita members work to revive the traditions of their families’ cultures. The Club Congress, elected democratically, sponsors parties, art exhibitions, and street demonstrations.
Currently the Club Mechita has 74 associates, and Ediac serves many more children and families indirectly.
Shine a Light has translated Ediac's groudbreaking research on child prostitution in Portuguese, and you can download it here:
Ediac, Espacios de Desarrollo Integral
Berriozabal #18, Col. Centro
CP 06020 México DF
México
tel/fax 57 02 58 55
Contact: Norma Negrete <negreteagua@hotmail.com>
