For migrant kids in Mexico, these colleges provide a lesson in hope : NPR
Youngsters draw throughout class on the Sure We Can faculty in Tijuana.
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Youngsters draw throughout class on the Sure We Can faculty in Tijuana.
Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR
In a small shelter made from cinder block partitions and a tin roof, Armando Hurtado Medina writes on a whiteboard the scale of the TVs in lots of American houses.
It is 6pm and classes have simply begun on this makeshift classroom discovered on the finish of a bumpy grime street that winds its means by a canyon in Tijuana, Mexico. Hurtado Medina is educating fundamental English and about 10 college students of varied ages slowly recite the alphabet again to him.
In one other a part of town, Sergio Garcia has simply completed his day educating a bunch of youngsters about emotional intelligence, guiding them on how they will flip the anger and trauma they really feel into one thing productive, like management.
Sergio Garcia teaches a category on the Sure We Can faculty.
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Sergio Garcia teaches a category on the Sure We Can faculty.
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These efforts are replicated throughout the border metropolis as volunteers and grassroots organizations grapple with a transient inhabitants of migrant college students and take a look at their finest to teach those that discover themselves dwelling in shelters whereas awaiting a greater life past.
“The aim of this faculty is in order that the migrants have a fundamental understanding of English,” Hurtado Medina mentioned. “Like tips on how to get out of an emergency scenario, [or when] they do not know tips on how to talk, or they do not know tips on how to translate fundamental data like cellphone numbers or addresses.”
“After they depart right here, they depart with confidence and are pleased with themselves that they are studying what is going on to be their new language.”
Hurtado Medina’s classroom is subsequent to the Embajadores de Jesús shelter that’s house to a whole bunch of migrants. There are about 20 shelters throughout town, and which means there are a whole bunch of youngsters who all of the sudden discover themselves in Tijuana and minimize off from conventional training.
Garcia’s faculty is an altogether extra skilled setup, subsequent to the Professional Amore Dei migrant shelter in one other a part of city. He works for the Sure We Can program, a nonprofit group that has three colleges in Mexico, together with two in Tijuana.
“We attempt to develop resilience in them,” he mentioned of the emotional intelligence classes. “In order that they be taught to maybe detect the conditions that make them really feel a bit unhappy, a bit extra susceptible, and assist information them.”
Estefania Rebellon has a private drive behind Sure We Can.
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Estefania Rebellon has a private drive behind Sure We Can.
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Sure We Can Government Director Estefania Rebellon is the founder and driving power behind this landmark program that has grown exponentially over the previous couple of years and has professionalized training for migrant kids in a means not seen earlier than in Tijuana.
Right here, the youngsters who arrive on the accomplice shelter subsequent door are routinely enrolled within the faculty at no cost, and admissions are accepted every single day of the 12 months. They’re given a uniform and backpack – even footwear, in the event that they want them. All academics are Mexican, are certified with school levels, and are paid.
Lessons are structured and there’s a totally fashioned curriculum that receives official accreditation from Mexico’s Secretary of Public Schooling, and can also be acknowledged in the US. The efforts are funded by a patchwork of donations and cash from non-government organizations.
“For migrant kids, a faculty house is extraordinarily essential as a result of if there weren’t any faculty areas like ours, they’d be in a shelter sitting there each single day with none stimulation, with none instructional growth,” Rebellon mentioned.
A transformed 1993 MCI coach is among the foremost school rooms on the Sure We Can faculty.
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A transformed 1993 MCI coach is among the foremost school rooms on the Sure We Can faculty.
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Justin, from Honduras, is among the college students on the faculty.
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Justin, from Honduras, is among the college students on the faculty.
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Youngsters pick drawing supplies throughout class.
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Youngsters pick drawing supplies throughout class.
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“We thought we had been going to be right here just for three months and now we have been right here for 3 years. So at this level, we have realized that we’re not a disaster response program, we’re a everlasting program.”
The delight of place for this faculty is a transformed 1993 MCI coach dubbed “the magic faculty bus” that has been gutted and fitted out with air-conditioning, iPads, a TV and workbooks. Within the spirit of the community-led nature of this faculty, Rebellon and one other co-founder purchased the bus off eBay in Los Angeles after which watched YouTube movies to learn to convert it.
The college has a sensible profit for the shelter subsequent door, too. Area is at a premium there, the place households share crowded rooms full of bunks. Every household will get only one mattress to make use of, no matter whether or not there are two individuals or 5 within the group. So taking the children into the college for a day permits the dad and mom the time and house to concentrate on the following step of their journey.
“We’re speaking about households going by very traumatic conditions,” Rebellon mentioned. “So if a father or mother is having all these existential disaster moments and their kids are there pulling on their denims, like kids do each single day, they don’t seem to be going to have the ability to accomplish their objectives.”
Rebellon is open concerning the truth lots of the children who arrive are behind of their training. They’ve had youngsters arrive who do not know tips on how to learn or write, and who might have suffered horrible trauma fleeing violence or crises wherever from Nicaragua to Venezuela and Guatemala.
However right here, they discover kindred spirits and are taught tips on how to channel these feelings. Rebellon is aware of this expertise properly. She was a migrant youngster from Cali, Colombia who was compelled to flee together with her household to the U.S. when she was 10 resulting from loss of life threats.
Justin, left, stretches after class with different college students.
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Justin, left, stretches after class with different college students.
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“What’s distinctive about our house is that when a child enters our program, they don’t seem to be the unusual one,” Rebellon mentioned. “They don’t seem to be ‘the migrant.’ They don’t seem to be ‘the one from Honduras.’ They don’t seem to be ‘the darkish skinned child.’ They’re a baby that is getting into a spot the place all of them look the identical.”
Close to the again of the bus, 12-year-old Justin is joking with buddies as his class continues. He has come from Puerto Cortés in Honduras and says the bus is his favourite a part of the college as a result of he can simply be himself in there.
“I can have enjoyable with everybody, I can discuss with them. It is unbelievable to be there,” he mentioned.
As for a way lengthy he’ll be dwelling within the shelter subsequent door, the place he’ll go subsequent, and what his future appears like, Justin has no thought. It is a widespread story for the children who discover themselves in makeshift school rooms dotted throughout Tijuana.
Sure We Can is now hoping to take the enterprise additional and is scouting areas to open a central faculty that migrant children can catch a bus to from any shelter within the metropolis. They’ve their eye on an previous library that has shut down.
Armando Hurtado Medina, co-coordinator for the English program on the Embajadores de Jesús migrant shelter teaches a fundamental English lesson on the shelter in Tijuana.
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Armando Hurtado Medina, co-coordinator for the English program on the Embajadores de Jesús migrant shelter teaches a fundamental English lesson on the shelter in Tijuana.
Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR
Again at his small shelter classroom within the canyon, Hurtado Medina has related objectives and is hopeful he can collaborate with Sure We Can and likewise attain the stage the place his children can get accreditation for his or her work.
The youngsters deserve all the assistance they will get, Rebellon mentioned.
“I all the time attempt to remind everybody that they are simply kids,” she mentioned. “They don’t seem to be liable for the scenario they are going by. So if you concentrate on that, then all the things begins occurring.”
