MAMA (The Movement in Favor of the Abandoned Child)
MAMA provides integrated services for street kids, working children, and at-risk children through street outreach, a school, a shelter, and a series of projects. Its work is essential in Guadalajara: According to UNICEF, this Mexican city has the highest rates of youth homelessness in Latin America.
First contact with the street kid happens on the street, where MAMA employs 7 outreach workers in an “open air school.” Some 60 kids participate in a “street club,” where they learn to play and to protect themselves from the worst dangers of homelessness. An agreement with a local shop provides a space for preschool, tutoring, literacy work, and getting drop-outs caught up their grade in school. This open air school also includes politics: the children learn about human rights and workers' rights; in addition, they have organized themselves into a union.
The second stage of the program is the “House of the Working Child.” The National Institute for Alternative Education (a government program) sponsors a school in the House, allowing 15 year olds with a first grade education to return to school without social stigma. The school endeavors to be just, to address the needs of poor and excluded children who have been expelled from other schools.
In addition to normal subjects, classes also include art, sport, games, and individual tutoring. Classes are divided by academic necessity. Mestizo children, generally from broken families, attend school in the morning, when teachers emphasize values, self-esteem, and math. Indian children, who generally come from poor but stable families, attend in the afternoon, when teachers emphasize language, literature, and social studies.
Pedagogy follows a model based on the child, h/er needs, and her strengths. If a girl sells potato chips on the street, for instance, teachers use her ability to give change as an introduction to math.
The House of the Child Worker also provides social services: food, health, and legal advise (particularly help with getting an ID or birth certificate). All services, including education, attempt to achieve three goals:
- Education for action: this area includes politics (campaigns on the street), play (organizing games, trips, and parties) and social responsibility (cleaning the House)
- Education for Solidarity: In spite of their poverty, these children want to help their peers in other cities and countries. When Honduras and Guatemala suffered from hurricanes, each child gathered a peso each day, then donated it to a Central American child. They have also given support to the zapatistas and victims of other natural disasters. Right now, the children are running a campaign against child labor at night, trying to help their peers who don’t study with MAMA.
- Education in Values: MAMA wants children to learn four values: justice, truth, peace, and solidarity -- this means on an emotional as well as intellectual level.
This pedagogy derives from popular education, but it also includes a more formal segment, “what things are called,” to teach children critical reasoning. The children learn about the five struggles (or five loves): study, work, sport, community life, and values. These struggles structure the program and their education, allowing the children to plan their futures. Teachers grade their students on their progress in each area, and children receive more Christmas gifts for scoring well.
MAMA depends on many volunteers, often from high school service projects. Most are trained before they come to the program, making the process much easier for MAMA.
“A Toda Madre” (an untranslatable pun based on the many meanings of “mother” in Mexican Spanish) is a sub-program to help the parents of street kids. After years of work with street kids, MAMA realized that it needed to help their mothers. Mothers can come to MAMA for four programs: a school (literacy, math), poverty alleviation (job skills and a union), improving life for their children (hygiene, affection, and self-esteem), and “mothers who play” (games to teach the “joy of motherhood.”). Each program attempts to commit mothers to help their kids.
Mama A.C. de Guadalajara
Movimiento de Apoyo a Menores Abandonados
MONTENEGRO # 1786
COLONIA BARRERA, GUADALAJARA JALISCO, MÉXICO
TEL. (52) 38.25.25.76
FAX 38.26.25.22
Contact: Rogelio Padilla, Director, direccion@mama.org.mx
or Alfredo Castellanos <acastellanos@mama.org.mx>
www.mama.org.mx
