Vida Plena, founded in 1998 by Benita Gavilán and her Paraguayan husband Silverio, is a foundation whose first project was a Montessori kindergarten and preschool project for children of the neighbourhood, ‘El JardínAbout Vida Plena and Paraguay
Vida Plena, founded in 1998 by Benita Gavilán and her Paraguayan husband Silverio, is a foundation whose first project was a Montessori kindergarten and preschool project for children of the neighbourhood, ‘El Jardín Activo’, for children of mixed social backgrounds. Friends and a German organization know as PPI (www.proparaguay.de) sponsored scholarships for the students whose parents could not pay the fees. The kindergarten ran for ten years and closed in April 2007 because too few children were enrolled.
In 2007 PPI suggested that Vida Plena take over the responsibility for the day-care facility in the Asunción Gross Market called ‘Centro de Apoyo para Niños y Niñas del Abasto’ (Support Centre for Market Children) which was founded in 2004 as a private initiative sponsored by PPI and a German Catholic youth aid organization.
The Centro de Apoyo’s main issue is to create an environment that helps children and teenagers become healthy, happy, intelligent and creative people, able to organize their lives and build stable human relationships. The children who use the centre are provided with opportunities to develop their motor, emotional, social and cognitive skills.
The children who use the centre come from families in a poor neighbourhood beside the Central Market where fathers and mothers are dependent on unqualified jobs. Many children live in what may be called the ‘remainders’ of a family: either the mother or the father or both have left, mostly to Argentina, to seek better job opportunities. Grandmothers, aunts or uncles or even the neighbours care for these children and survive on what the absent parents send them. Often at home no one supports the children in their activities or interests, or even to gives them enough to eat.
There are few similar childcare centres in the Central Market area or the town and those usually only accept younger children up to the age of eight. There are not even playgrounds in this part of town and public and private schools are the only institutions that receive children and teenagers.
Supported by the same two German organizations, Vida Plena offers spaces for about 80 children (aged three to 14). At the centre they get a warm welcome, nutritious snacks (which they also learn to prepare), do their homework accompanied by qualified educators, are supervised in the playground, and they can choose to participate in different kinds of games, handicraft and artwork activities. The number of children varies as they are not obliged to attend. Half of the kids, who attend school in the afternoon, come in the three hour morning shift and the other half come for the afternoon shift because they go to school in the morning.
Three or four times a year Vida Plena organises day tours with the children and their families. These outings are funded by a Swedish organization called TAMAM (www.tamam.se) whose main role is to support immigrant children and youth in Sweden, and which has created outreach to the countries of origin of Swedish immigrants.
Benita relies on the International Child development Programme (ICDP) as the basis for her work with children. Her life experience as a mother of four, a La Lèche League leader and running the Montessori kindergarten for ten years has been fundamental to understanding what children need from adults.
Asunción is the capital of Paraguay, a landlocked country in the heart of South America, with a population of seven million. Paraguay’s society is young; almost 50% of its population is under twenty years old and two-thirds of them are poor. Its main social problem is the sharp contrast between the few rich families and the mass of the poor, both urban and rural; a thin middle class; and the unequal distribution of land. Less than 10% of the population owns more than 90% of the land. The languages of Paraguay are Spanish and Guarani. Guarani is spoken by two-thirds of the population and one-third speak no Spanish. Activo’, for children of mixed social backgrounds. Friends and a German organization know as PPI (www.proparaguay.de) sponsored scholarships for the students whose parents could not pay the fees. The kindergarten ran for ten years and closed in April 2007 because too few children were enrolled.
In 2007 PPI suggested that Vida Plena take over the responsibility for the day-care facility in the Asunción Gross Market called ‘Centro de Apoyo para Niños y Niñas del Abasto’ (Support Centre for Market Children) which was founded in 2004 as a private initiative sponsored by PPI and a German Catholic youth aid organization.
The Centro de Apoyo’s main issue is to create an environment that helps children and teenagers become healthy, happy, intelligent and creative people, able to organize their lives and build stable human relationships. The children who use the centre are provided with opportunities to develop their motor, emotional, social and cognitive skills.
The children who use the centre come from families in a poor neighbourhood beside the Central Market where fathers and mothers are dependent on unqualified jobs. Many children live in what may be called the ‘remainders’ of a family: either the mother or the father or both have left, mostly to Argentina, to seek better job opportunities. Grandmothers, aunts or uncles or even the neighbours care for these children and survive on what the absent parents send them. Often at home no one supports the children in their activities or interests, or even to gives them enough to eat.
There are few similar childcare centres in the Central Market area or the town and those usually only accept younger children up to the age of eight. There are not even playgrounds in this part of town and public and private schools are the only institutions that receive children and teenagers.
Supported by the same two German organizations, Vida Plena offers spaces for about 80 children (aged three to 14). At the centre they get a warm welcome, nutritious snacks (which they also learn to prepare), do their homework accompanied by qualified educators, are supervised in the playground, and they can choose to participate in different kinds of games, handicraft and artwork activities. The number of children varies as they are not obliged to attend. Half of the kids, who attend school in the afternoon, come in the three hour morning shift and the other half come for the afternoon shift because they go to school in the morning.
Three or four times a year Vida Plena organises day tours with the children and their families. These outings are funded by a Swedish organization called TAMAM (www.tamam.se) whose main role is to support immigrant children and youth in Sweden, and which has created outreach to the countries of origin of Swedish immigrants.
Benita relies on the International Child development Programme (ICDP) as the basis for her work with children. Her life experience as a mother of four, a La Lèche League leader and running the Montessori kindergarten for ten years has been fundamental to understanding what children need from adults.
Asunción is the capital of Paraguay, a landlocked country in the heart of South America, with a population of seven million. Paraguay’s society is young; almost 50% of its population is under twenty years old and two-thirds of them are poor. Its main social problem is the sharp contrast between the few rich families and the mass of the poor, both urban and rural; a thin middle class; and the unequal distribution of land. Less than 10% of the population owns more than 90% of the land. The languages of Paraguay are Spanish and Guarani. Guarani is spoken by two-thirds of the population and one-third speak no Spanish.