Afternoon Program
We want to help children in the community that why our goal is to improve children´s well-being. So we work to provide a safe place for children. Come on and check how we do it.
At the community of Canton Xeula, las Rosas where we work there is a long list of difficulties resulting from a lack of economic and educational opportunities especially now after the COVID 19. Most children are from single-parent families, they do not have a safe place to go when their classes end at noon or they do not have supervision, parents may work around twelve hours so children, not being cared for, can fall into unproductive activities for them. That is why we develop the project called Afternoon program (Caras Alegres Tarde), which seeks to improve children´s well-being by breaking the circles of marginalization, violence, abandonment and poverty, through non-formal education based on ludo-pedagogical aspects.
Boys and girls attend their regular classes in the mornings at the different schools in the sector and in the afternoons the doors of Asociación Caras Alegres open to give them the opportunity to participate in different activities, among which psychotherapeutic workshops, crafts or sports promoting through these values, rights and obligations, emotional intelligence, self-esteem and more.
Art and crafts, including drawing, painting and creating handicrafts; Sport and dance, including football, basketball and Zumba; Workshops where we do more complete activities, among which workshop on gender equity or English classes. That is why Caras Alegres Tarde offers 120 children and adolescents a space where they can be in a safe and positive environment. Without this program, the children of Las Rosas would be at risk of crime, drugs and alcohol, which are quite prevalent problems in the community. Considering this, in our program, we want to propose a space where they can have fun and develop positive relationships out of harmful influences. From Monday to Friday, from 14 to 16.30, we open our doors and offer activities such as: In Caras Alegres Tarde children have the opportunity to be creative and have fun, but also the team and environment provide them with good role models, which teach them values and positive social and moral ethics.
Every year, thousands of children drop out of school: dropping out and absenteeism are a serious problem in Guatemala, one of the countries with the highest illiteracy in Latin America and which invests the least in education, which has only 2.8% of the domestic product invested in it. In 2020 alone, 40% of children drop out of school due to a lack of resources during a situation severely affected by the crisis.