Yo sí puedo....Yes I can

A large number of the kids we care for at Casa Alianza have zero or very limited reading or writing skills.  As you can imagine, for a kid sent out to sell chewing gum on the streets since six years of age, reading has never been a major priority.

Every kid who comes is Casa Alianza is thus given the opportunity to learn how to read or write, either by specialists working in our residential shelters, or in formal schools and colleges.

There are, however, a number of kids who never quite make it to Casa Alianza.  One such group are the kids who live on the streets of Managua's Oriental Market, the biggest and most dangerous market the city has to offer.  These are the kids that live and sleep on the 'callejones de la muerte,' the death alleyways, where since about seven years of age they have been hooked on drugs (mainly glue) and have slowly deteriorated their physical and mental capacities.  They are kids who wander barefoot, covered in cuts and bruises.  The most determinable characteristic is the little jar of glue permanently stuffed up to their mouths and noses.

For kids such as these, making a change to come and live at Casa Alianza can often be too drastic.  As I have said on this blog before, the street is highly addictive.  On the streets, these kids who have been taking drugs for the best part of their lives can do so as and when they wish, there are no rules, no structure and nobody to tell them off.  In Casa Alianza, however, it is different.  There is a structure and a clear set of rules, especially prohibiting the use of any harmful substance.

As such, many of these kids are unable to readjust to a new way of life.  This, however, does not mean that we can't do anything to help them.   Last month at Casa Alianza we launched 'Yo sí puedo....Yes I can', the initiative to train children how to read and write, for the kids living on the streets in the Oriental Market.

For the last few Friday's we have been heading out the market, armed with a set of notebooks, pencils, coloring pens and textbooks, and of course a set of fruit juices and biscuits.

In the first session, two kids arrived to study.   In the session last week, 14 kids arrived to study and the numbers keep going up.    

Gradually, we are getting somewhere with this initiative.  The kids who come to study are kids who were not even able to write their own names, but our now proudly able to write their names, dates, the abc, and are gaining a feeling of accomplishment from what they are achieving   Additionally, the 60 minutes they are in the class is 60 minutes away from drugs.

We might not be able to achieve everything we would like to with kids such as these, whose lives have been so affected by abuse, drug addiction, violence and poverty, but it does mean we are able to make some form of difference, and keep moving in the right direction.