The Project
The FH mission is to walk with churches, leaders and families to overcome all forms of human poverty. Our aim is to end poverty in Puerto Camacho in one generation through empowering the community to discover and develop their own potential. We hope to see the residents become the agents of change to break the poverty cycle and continue meeting their own needs with confidence beyond the life of the FH project.
Despite the circumstances into which they are born, each child has a unique potential. In places like Puerto Camacho this potential is never given the opportunity to fully develop. We believe that by unlocking this potential, we can unlock poverty and end it in one generation. This was the experience of Oscar Montes, FH Bolivia Director. Click here to read about his experience.
After six months of carefully identifying the specific needs in Puerto Camacho with the participation of the community, FH began a community development programme beginning with 100 children and their families , 5 community leaders and the local church to facilitate the development of the community as follows:
Children
In October 2009 we began a children’s development programme for 100 children which involves classes 3 afternoons per week. The children receive training in a variety of areas to discover and develop their potential and talents. They also learn about areas such as health, hygiene and nutrition practices, as well as principles and ways of thinking which result in development rather than poverty. They also receive a snack to aid nourishment and concentration level.
The children arrive early to classes as they are so eager to be there. This is a big statement in a culture where people rarely arrive on time.
Families
The FH staff which work with the 100 children will also carry out home visits to get to know the families of each child in the programme. This will give them the opportunity to identify issues which prevent the children from developing, and walk alongside the family to overcome these issues, as well as other problems which hold the family in poverty.
Leaders
FH staff has worked with the community leaders to create a Strategic Plan for the community. The staff are now working with them to create a Annual Operative Plan for 2010. This will define what areas of the Strategic Plan the leaders will work on during 2010 as well as what support and training FH can give them to help them better serve Puerto Camacho in resolving its problems.
Local Church
FH began working with the local church in Puerto Camacho in 2008.Training the church is biblical worldview, development ethic and integral ministry helped the church understand the plan God has for Bolivia and the church’s role in this plan and in serving Puerto Camacho. This prepared the ground for the development of this FH project as the community was already prepared to work with us and take ownership of the project, and not just expect a handout.
The church made their building available for the children’s programme and used its own funds to carry out significant repairs to prepare the building to house 100 children including: plastering and painting walls of three rooms to become classrooms, building stairs to replace to wooden ladder to safely access the classrooms, rebuilding a wall in the kitchen and refurbishing the kitchen to make it suitable to prepare the snack for the children 3 times a week.
Each of the teachers in the four classes are FH staff members which each have a volunteer assistant from the church. Women from the church also volunteer to make the snack for the children. The church has great hopes of being able to expand their efforts in serving the community in the future.
The above project is based on Transformational Community Development Focused on Children. The reasons for focusing on children to bring about transformational development of the whole community are:
- Tackling poverty from the roots to bring holistic and sustainable development involves a shift in mindset and adopting new ways of thinking and acting. Although it is important to work with adults, children are able to adopt new ideas much more easily and quickly than adults. Therefore to invest our resources where we will see more fruit, we focus on children.
- 50% of the Bolivian population are children and youth. Therefore they are not only the future but also the present. If we want to take an important step in development in Bolivia, we must focus on this segment of the population.
- Real change requires long term investment in lives. By investing in children we will see results as they grow up into adults and become the parents and leaders of the community. By investing in children today, the community will have a solid foundation of knowledge, principles, and behaviours in the future which they will pass it on to the next generation to ensure continual development.
However, a child is not an island and is affected by the environment within which it lives. If we do not address that environment the child will experience a clash between what it hears in our programme and what it hears outside; in their family, school, community etc. Therefore, although our main efforts and investment is in children, as the above project details show, we also work with the families, leaders and church which surround the children. Although we hope to see progress and change amongst the parents and leaders, we are aware that the main development will be seen amongst the children, who are tomorrow’s parents and leaders, meaning a brighter tomorrow for the whole community.
To read in detail about why we chose to start working in the city of El Alto, how we chose the area of Puerto Camacho and how we planned the project with the participation of the community
click here.
