El Abrojo (The Burr)

Among its various projects, El Abrojo works creatively with street kids, based in research, political critique, and grass-roots activism. The program hopes to change the kids’ world, helps them construct life-projects, and critiques structures of power that surround them. Abrojo means “burr,” and el Abrojo wants to be a seed that falls in unexpected ground, like a burr.

El Abrojo’s most visible project is a school bus that travels through Pocitos, a rich neighborhood where kids come to sell or clean windshields. Inside the bus, El Abrojo keeps games, school materials, and a library. “It’s the street off the street, where the kids still feel like they own the space, but where they can be safe.” 75 kids come regularly to the bus.

Research and diagnosis are important; educators keep careful files on all the kids. They have found that convincing them to leave the street is easier when staff document and know the details of their lives.

Over the last year, school has become central to the bus. A public school teacher always travels with the street team; s/he works on literacy, tutors kids that remain in school, and eases return to school for drop outs. Older kids can recieve a sort of high school equivalency diploma, for which the teacher prepares them, if they prefer that option over a return to school. The public school sytem pays the teacher, even though all of her work is with El Abrojo.

Health is also an important issue on the bus. A nearby swimming pool allows kids to come for free, but the kids must take a physical in order to attend. Since the kids do want to swim, El Abrojo can insure that they have their vaccinations and can get them the medical help they need.

Other programs in El Abrojo offer other services, from vocational training to therapy, and staff do their best to refer street kids to them.

El Abrojo does similar work in a shopping center in Repique. The neighborhood is middle class, but in recent years, poor people have moved from the center to the perifery of the city, where the government has not yet set up the social service network. The methodology is similar to that in the bus, but here staff can work more closely with families, because kids are not so far from their homes. For this reason, in Repique El Abrojo has had great success with workshops for mothers: on family relations, gender, and child rearing.

El Abrojo takes volunteers, but they understand that they’re helping the volunteer more than the street kid. Many university students do their internships in the program, and professors provide straegic advice and personal therapy.

Children’s rights are essential to El Abrojo’s mission. Not only do they teach kids about their rights and help them denounce violations, they have begun to work with police to teach them how to treat kids better.

Like other Uruguayan NGOs, El Abrojo takes advantage of Proyecto 300, in which the NGO distributes money to poor families as long as thei fulfill a contract: that their kids not work, that they attend school, etc. The money comes in the form of food stamps.


Paula Baleato
Coordinadora Programa Infancia, Adolescencia y Juventud
El Abrojo
Soriano 1153
CP: 11100
Montevideo-Uruguay

(598 - 2) 903-0144/ 900-9123

www.elabrojo.org.uy
elabrojo@elabrojo.org.uy

infaj@elabrojo.org.uy