After-School Program

We believe education is an important ladder to escape poverty and this is why we offer an after-school program to help the kids strengthen what they learn at school and do their homework. The kids from El Arenal lack the economic means to have an organic educational growth; therefore, the after-school program aims to bridge the educational gap and help the kids remain competitive at school.

Our program is divided into two sessions - one in the morning and one during the afternoon. Older kids, 12 to 17 years old, attend the first session from 8 am to 12:30 pm and go to school during the afternoon. Younger kids, 6 to 11 years old, on the other hand, attend the second session during the afternoon and attend their usual classes in the morning. Both groups have lunch at El Arenal between 12 pm and 2 pm. In addition, each session is divided into three subgroups - based on the kids' age and grade - that correspond to the pertinent workshops. Lastly, at 2 pm, the kids that attend the afternoon session gather in the park in front of El Arenal for what we call Inclusion. This is 10 minutes of stress relief exercises to start classes with the right mindset.

The after-school program includes three workshops: Logic and Mathematics, Communication, and Art. The subgroups within each session rotate workshops throughout the week to reinforce the material the kids learn at school. Our educators, Irvin, Chunchi, and Verónica, are in charge of running the workshops.

As for the curricula, the workshops follow the Ecuadorian standard curricula. However, the educators, director, and psychologist of our organization complement the curricula with material where the kids lack development and our social worker, María Dolores, supervises the learning. In addition, El Arenal provides all the books and supplies for the kids to incentivize their learning.

In 2017, the organization spent 75,759.08 USD in the after-school program including some extracurricular activities like Christmas and Carnaval festivities, school supplies, and operating costs. On average, we provided our services to 76 kids, which means the annual cost per kid was ~996.83 USD or ~83.07 USD per month.

IMG_5746

IMG_5745

IMG_5751

IMG_5750

We believe the nutrition and health of the kids have an important impact on their performance and learning at school; therefore, the nutritional program is an essential part of our services and mission. Our nutritional program is designed by a nutritionist on a monthly basis to ensure the kids get a well-balanced diet for their mental and physical development. The program consists of a snack and lunch for every kid during weekdays.

The first session has lunch after the workshops at 12 pm right before going to school. The second session, on the other hand, has lunch after attending their usual classes. It is important to note that each kid washes his own dishes and brushes his teeth. We believe getting the kids involved with the chores of El Arenal, teaches responsibility and hygiene. Additionally, every week we ask the help of two parents to serve lunch to the kids and clean; this is the only required task if the parents want to have their kids with us. This promotes the sense of community and collaboration at our organization.

We would never be able to provide the nutritional program to our children without the help of María del Auxilio and Rosario, two amazing women and friends who cook lunch for 75+ kids. Every day, María and Rosario come to El Arenal with the lunch of 75+ kids, which includes fruit, main dish, and juice. The average cost of lunch is ~1.26 USD per kid per day and ~48 cents for the snack. In 2017, El Arenal spent 29,045.11 USD on the nutritional program for ~76 kids, which translates to an annual cost of 382.17 USD per kid or a monthly cost of 34.74 USD per kid (11 months only).

Nutritional Program

Extracurricular Activities

As part of our services, we organize extracurricular activities for the kids to have fun and immerse in new challenges and activities. Throughout the years, we realized extracurricular activities help the kids develop socialization skills and become more creative and curious. Additionally, our cultural activities expose the kids to traditions pertinent to their cultural background while having fun. We believe part of being a kid is having fun and this is why we put a lot of effort to organize these activities and see the kids smile.

Every Friday, we have what we call Cultural Fridays, which consists in having activities that promote the kids learning of their cultural background or socialization skills. Some of the activities include camping, visiting museums, visiting the capital, going to the movie theatre, field excursions, and holiday events such as Christmas, Carnaval, Dia de Los Muertos among others. Furthermore, we organize special in-house activities such as building an orchard, painting the reading room, cooking, watching a movie, handcrafts, and creating "art galleries."

Since the extracurricular activities are not part of our main budget, we rely on donations and fundraising to finance these activities. In 2017, for example, we organized a Fanesca lunch for the community with the kids and their families to finance the trip of 10 adolescents to the capital, Quito. Given the financial constraints, we try to organize at least one extracurricular activity every other month. Nonetheless, we hope to have more of these activities as they have shown to be very meaningful for the kids and to improve their performance at school. Below you will find some of the moments we have shared with the kids in our extracurricular activities.

Family Counseling

Collaborating with the parents is a pillar of our mission to help the kids reach their full potential. Therefore, we provide family counseling to keep track of our children's progress and extend the work we do at home. Our children come from very poor backgrounds, where families struggle every day to bring food to their tables. This not only leads to malnutrition, but also to emotional issues and in many cases, kids left alone at home or required to ask for money in the streets, which impact the kids' education and growth. Our family counseling program aims to avoid these issues by working with the families and inducing the importance of the family's support on the kids' education.

María Augusta, our psychologist, leads the Family Counseling Program. She meets with the parents of each kid once every three months and supports the extraordinary cases to help families deal with personal problems that affect the family and the kids' education. In addition to the one-to-one meetings, we organize workshops to promote health, safety, and well-being at home.

Maribel, our director, wants to expand this program as she believes this is a major factor that influences our kids' performance at school. Moreover, we want to include workshops for parents to learn Computer Science, Personal Finance, Business Management, woodwork, weaving and more, with the mission to improve the families' job prospectus and break the poverty cycle.