Well these first two weeks have been non-stop! Once finally arriving in La Paz, we started learning and visiting all the projects of Foundation Acro Iris. Our first day we went to Hogar de Niñas Obrajes, an orphanage for one hundred and twenty girls. Many of these girl come from dangerous and unstable home lives of abuse and neglect. Although most of these girls are orphans, some of them have parents who
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| Girls at Niñas Obrajes |
have either disappeared, thrown them on the street, or are in jail. The girls in the home range from five to eighteen years old and live in the orphanage all together. The girls are split in "families" of about twenty girls of all ages with a "mom" to each family that is at the home twenty-four hours a day. Like Argentina, the school in Bolivia is broken into morning classes and then afternoon classes. Most of the girls, especially the younger ones, go to school from eight until about noon while the other ones work on homework or get tutored. All of the girls are home at twelve-thirty for lunch all together and then the second group of girls go to school from one-thirty until about six. FAI works to give these girls the closest to a true home environment that they can offer. The home has physiologists, tutors, social workers, cooks, dance teachers, a nurse, and a weekly doctor all on staff to give to the girls. Each girl in Niñas Obrajes has their own individual story, but each is filled with hurt, neglect, and pain. On our arrival to the orphanage, we meet one beautiful girl named Gabriella. When we asked her her age, she had to refer to Cristoball, the director of all the programs, to remember she was sixteen. Cristoball told us that she had been living in the home until one day her father got out of jail and showed up to the home. The father took Gabriella from the orphanage, which is illegal because Niñas Obrajes has official custody of all the girls, and soon after they left the home the father left Gabriella in the street for a second and she got hit by a car. Gabriella was in a coma for six months and now thankfully she is out of the hospital and back at Niñas Obrajes, but she has been physically, mentally, and emotionally damaged for life and now has to work to remember all the simple things once again, things like her name. This is only the story of one girl, my own age, who has been through more in sixteen years than I think I will ever go through. FAI works with these girls and teaches them skills so that they can hopefully become independent once they reach eighteen. At this age, the girls are moved from the orphanage and moved into Casa de la Estudiante y Trabajadora. These are apartments that the girls move into to finish school, get a job, and become independent from the home.
After Niñas Obrajes, we went to Centro Betaña, another project of FAI. This project is located in Gran Betaña, one of La Paz's poorest neighborhoods. Unlike Niñas Obrajes, Betaña is not a home for
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| "I am so broken that I have no desire to fix myself" |
the kids to live in, but where kids can voluntarily come to be tutored, to eat, to get medical assistance, and to get away from the rough life many of them have at home. Betaña takes in kids from six to eighteen years old. Along with the main building of Betaña, down the street there is a nursery that takes care of kids from one to five. These children are from the area of Gran Betaña too and despite their hard conditions, they are so joyful and loving.
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| Fifteen year old mom with her newborn son |
In the next few days we visited Casa Esperanza and Casa Refugio as well. Casa Esperanza is the equivalent of Niñas Obrajes, but for boys. There are eighty boys in this home and many of the boys are brothers of the girls in Niñas Obrajes. Esperanza also has a nurse and social workers on staff and the two floors of dorms for the boys each have a "mom" and a "dad" to give the kids a feeling of true family. The father stays with the boys for twenty-four hours and the next twenty-four hours the mother stays with the boys. Each room for the boys has between two to four beds and FAI integrates boys of all ages and personalities. They try to put boys together with different strengths in hope that they will all learn from each other. After Casa Esperanza we visited Casa Refugio, which was one of the most sobering places
we have visited. Before actually entering Casa Refugio on the second floor, we learned of another project of FAI called Proyecto Apoyo Social Familiar. This program works with the families of the area to help them with financial and medical needs. The team goes and visits the families in their homes to work to better their lives and improve their situations. After this project, we got to go up to Casa Refugio where my heart melted. Casa Refugio is a home for teenagers that are either pregnant or have recently had a baby. The girls live in the home with their child from their point of entering until they reach the age of eighteen. Most of the girls get pregnant at about eleven or twelve years old with 99% of the cases being inter-familiar rape.
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| Fifteen year old mom with her year and a half daughter |
Once these girls get pregnant, their mothers will not believe that either their son or new husband raped their daughter and eventually the daughters either leave to escape the abuse or are kicked out of the home. Many of these girls are still in school so they have a very intense schedule. In the morning they go to work to get money to support themselves and their child, return in the afternoon for lunch with their child, attend specialized classes that teach them specific skills, and then attend school at night. FAI gives these girls food, shelter, support, and love but realize that they will soon be on their own and try to prepare them for this time. The classes, getting more specific the older the mother gets, try to set the mothers up to have a reliable, steady job to support their new family. Casa Refugio offers counseling in helping the young mothers balance their new lives as mothers. In addition to counseling, FAI offers social, legal, and physiological assistance. Because most of these cases are inter-familiar, there are many legal cases to deal with. These cases are generally just dropped however with no punishment to the attacker. Some of the girls stay in the home until after they are eighteen solely because it is still not safe for them to go out alone with their aggressor still on the streets.
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| Few of the children from Casa Refugio |
As if all these projects are not incredible and doing enough, FAI has more programs to help the children of La Paz. It's biggest project is Caso de Paso, which addresses every aspect of family needs. The main part of Caso de Paso, like Betaña is a place for children of the area to come to to have their needs meet. The children usually come either in the morning if they have classes in the afternoon or after school if they have morning classes. Caso de Paso provides breakfast, snacks, lunch, and tea to about 300 children they help each day. Caso de Paso also offers recreational facilities such as areas to play basketball and soccer; free medical care from the doctor and dentist on staff; vocational workshops such as jewelry making, painting, and carpentry; and classes with tutors, computer labs, and literacy teachers. Caso de Paso is also home to about twenty boys who lived on the streets and offers all these same programs to these boys including an education and dinner, all of the other kids return to their houses for the night for dinner and to sleep. The children that Caso de Paso serves either live or work on the streets. The difference between these two groups of kids are major. The kids who work on the streets are often ambitious and hard-working to provide for themselves and their family. Most of the children who live in the streets have been through so much and are at the point that they do not care about their lives. They find that they rather live in the streets because there they have no responsibilities and can live as they please. Some of these kids that are affected by these two rough lifestyles are not even five years old yet.
Caso de Paso has a nursery they offer as well. This nursery is where my heart is. The kids in this daycare, between one and five years old, are mostly children of women who work on the streets, a majority of the mothers being prostitutes. As soon as we walked into the room, all of the children ran towards us and grabbed onto us yelling "hola hola" with huge smilies across their faces. Leaving these kids thirty minutes later was honestly one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. But Caso de Paso does not only care for the children of this area, they work with the whole family. One family we met consisted of a mother and seven children, one of which was mentally retarded. We were told that the women had three children with her first husband until he no longer wanted to care for her and his children and left them for a younger woman. Desperate for help, she soon remarried to a new man with four children of his one, one of which is the one with special needs. Soon after her second marriage, this man decided that he too did not want to care for them all and she was left again with now seven children, four of which that are not her own and having to take care of a special needs son whom she does not even know his mother. The Proyecto Trabajadores, a part of Caso de Paso, works with families like this that work in the streets. The project gets the kids working on the streets to school and tries to keep them out of the daily drugs, alcohol, and crime that they are surrounded by. The project also provides school supplies to the students and scholarships to attend technical training and university. The project helps the workers to save and handle their money and visits the streets to find the workers and help them manage all this. On top of the financial aspect, Caso de Paso also offers social workers and physiologists to help the families deal with their mental or emotional programs they might have.
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An addictive drug made of shoe glue,
gasoline, and water |
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| Home of kids living under the bridge |
Another project inside Caso de Paso is Proyecto Calle. In La Paz, tons of people, especially children, live in the streets wherever they can find a "home": under bridges, parks, cementaries, garbage disposal sites, and some are lucky enough to find buildings with single rooms they can rent. Most of these children are orphans, abandoned, or victims of family abuse. A general scenario of these children is that the mother gets remarried and the new stepfather either abuses his new children or does not want them. The kids are either kicked out by their own mothers or run away to escape this life. The workers at Caso de Paso do many different things with these people. One part of Proyecto Calle is called House of Improvement for kids who want to leave their lives on the streets. Caso de Paso help to improve the lives of these children and some are eventually moved into Niñas Obrajes or Casa Esperanza. Another part of Proyecto Calle is daily visits to the "houses" of these street kids and give them medical assistance, clothing, blankets, food, etc. We had the opportunity to do this yesterday with some of the kids that live under one of the bridges. The work with these children right now is only once or twice a week because it just started. The workers first had to gain the trust of these children, the hardest part of this job. After finally winning their trust, they have begun to teach these kids simple math problems and bring them food on their visits. Yesterday we visited the bridge to get the kids and to see where they live. Most of these kids are between fifteen to nineteen years old and have grown as sort of a family. They have very open romantic relationships with each other and live a life of stealing mostly to get by. Most of these kids are addicted to drugs and alcohol or anything they can find to ease some of their pain. After going to the bridge, we took the kids to a nearby park to spend time with them and do some math problems with them. Despite their circumstances, these kids are so giving and just a joy. They loved spending time with us, taking pictures, talking of celebrities, and just being shown true love. Although these kids have grown so rough and defensive on the outside, once you get past their exterior they are some of the sweetest kids you will ever meet.
After visiting with these kids, we visited the last part of Caso de Paso and Proyecto Calle. This work is visiting houses in the poorest areas of La Paz to give them support. These volunteers have 120 homes that they visit regularly and try to improve the conditions of their lives. These families live all together in small "houses" of generally one or two rooms with the bare minimum of necessities. One family we were told had one bed that all twelve members of the family slept on. The hope for each family is that they will be able to improve to be able to live independently of FAI. The house we visited yesterday is of one mother with three girls of 18, 12, and 11. The family definitely lives in poverty and are fighting to make it through each day. The oldest daughter has Chicken Pox right now that she had gotten from her two younger sisters who just got over it. She did not look up the whole time we were there out of embarrassment and pain. The mother has a severe heart condition and is confined to a wheel chair. She cannot move around her house because of her condition and how weak she is. The mother recently ran out of her medicine and was continually saying that she could not breathe. The volunteers of this specific project are only given 250 Bolivianos, about $30 US, a month for all 120 families for medicine. That gives about $0.30 for each family each month for medicine, which almost every member of every family needs. These families are fighting to get by.
After two weeks, you can only imagine how soft my heart has grown and how grateful I am. I am not only grateful of the life and family that I have been given, but even more that I have the opportunity, even for just four months, to help these children and make a difference in their lives.
In case you want to read more information about Acro Iris and the other programs you can visit the website
http://www.arcoirisbolivia.org/en/default.html 
