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CENIT
Country background:
The Republic of Ecuador is located in the northwestern corner of South America, bordering on Colombia and Peru. Part of its territory includes the Galapagos Islands which makes Ecuador one of the countries with the highest biodiversity on the planet.
In the early 90’s economic growth and welfare improvements were visible. However, a succession of external shocks and natural disasters, combined with poor economic management, led to a severe economic crisis at the end of 1999, which triggered the adoption of the U.S. dollar in 2000. Despite high oil prices (oil is a major export) economic growth has slowed well below LAC regional average in recent years.
Low private investment remains the main bottleneck for sustained high economic growth in Ecuador. Inequality and political instability are still among the main problems affecting this country.
Organization:
CENIT, El Centro de la Niña Trabajadora (Centre for the Working Girl) is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation devoted to helping working children (especially working girls) and their families overcome grinding poverty and improve their quality of lives through education and job training, nutrition programmes, health and social services, psychological help and recreation.
CENIT was founded in 1991 by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd and is much more than a school. Every year CENIT serves 1,000 girls and family members directly and goes on to benefit an additional 4,000 individuals indirectly. It also maintains long-term follow-up with girls and families to ensure that girls spend less time on the street, enjoy a childhood free from abuse, and realize their educational dreams.
There are classrooms and other special rooms for vocational activities such as: handcrafting of leather accessories, ceramics, painting, sewing and design, carpentry, greetings cards design and a bakery. There is also a small clinic where the students and parents can have basic medication. A doctor and a volunteer nurse run it.
Children who have been working in the streets for some years sometimes need to be levelled to the standard knowledge of a full time student. The primary school is completed in two school years so at the end of this period the student can join a standard institution for their secondary school. The students who continue, mainly female students, have a special type of high school that gives them a degree in handicraft, certified by the Ministry of Education.
Project Overview:
CENIT has created a school for street children in Quito focused especially on girls. DLA's contribution helped with craft materials (which later will be traded bringing income to the charity) and also paid for salaries for staff for one year. Improvements were also made to the quality of the food and diet that the students receive at CENIT as well as to purchase of an industrial stove, so that cooking in such quantities can be quicker, easier, and more effective.
Other areas were:
- Raising the salary of some teachers to ensure teachers retention and competitiveness
- Establishing a programme for volunteers to cooperate with local teachers in a “mentoring” scheme for students, to teach computing skills. Helping cover the salaries of several teachers that currently have no source of funding to cover their salaries.
- Acquiring school materials, texts and books for the library and helping subsidize the cost of attending our primary school ESTAR. This programme is six years of schooling compressed into 3 years, the students must buy new books and materials every semester, and thus it results in a more costly academic year.
- Improved materials in CENIT's street outreach programme, which currently has no existing source of funding besides volunteer donations. Acquisition of academic materials for our homework help centre CEA so that the kids have pencils, erasers, etc., and can complete their homework more neatly and thoroughly.
Event where money was raised:
Second Rhythms of Latin America Festival, we raised £6,800 and welcomed 800 visitors.