“Raising girls to be independent and confident”

By Linda Karvonen.

(Taken from ICYE Federation Newsletter, 24th issue)

My name is Linda Karvonen. I am a Finnish ICYE volunteer working now for six months in the orphanage Hogares Providencia in Toluca in Mexico.

It is made for girls in difficult situations, for example girls who are beaten, sexually exploited, ignored by their parents or with some other problem that makes it impossible for them to stay with their families. Some of the girls have been part of street gangs and in real danger of living in the streets permanently. The orphanage is not very big, at the moment there are thirteen girls living in the house, aged 5-19, so it is possible to see it more than a home than an orphanage. Some of the older girls have lived there since they were about ten years old. Adoption is an option, but it’s rare that somebody does that because most of them are older than ten years. Most of the girls who come to Hogares Providencia are referred by the governmental agency Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF). In Hogares

Providencia the girls are provided a safe home, education, upbringing, food and somebody who cares about them. The three women that care of the girls, called “tias” (aunts) work in 24 hours shifts, every three days. They hug them, reprimand them if needed, cook, wash, and them help with the homework, as a mother would do. The only difference is that these so called mothers have thirteen children, which makes it impossible to give the girls a lot of attention, but they do theirbest.

Every girl has a task to do every day with the goal of learning to be responsible and taking care of thehome. It may be about washing the dishes, setting up the table, cleaning the toilets or washing the floor. The tasks change every week. If the girls don’t complete their tasks, they have to do a lot more the next week or they are punished in some other way. Many times they are prohibited to watch television for some time or use the computer. All the girls attend school. Many of them are lagging behind in their studies because of earlier problems with their families. Two girls are studying at the university (interior design and economics). Almost everybody else still goes to primary school, including a 14-year-old. The older girls have more freedom; for example, they can go see their friends outside the house. Because the orphanage doesn’t have a lot of money, some of the older ones work on the weekends, in order to have some pocket money.

The orphanage relies on the fact that they can trust the girls. If a girl escapes, she can’t come back. That’s why the girls who stay there normally don’t escape. Many times there are problems with girls, who don’t want to obey the rules, but they have to speak with the director and in her room they normally come up with a solution. There are some rules that everybody has to obey and all the adults working there cooperate with the upbringing of the girls like in a big family. With a mixture of love and punishment (never physical) they try to raise the girls in conformity with the goals of Hogares Providencia that are raising them to be independent, confident, well-bred individuals. As I see it, it works as good as it can.

My experience in Germany, or how ICYE changed my life.

By: Luis Alberto Lamprea. ICYE Colombia 2007-2008

As a 23 year old industrial designer, who lived his whole life in a 7 million inhabitants city, in Latinamerica, the options seemed to be very clear: to find a job in the industry, to make a career on it, to live 8-12 hours a day online, try to ascend in the social scale, to buy a car, a flat and maybe start a new middle class family who will fight for survive in an overcrowded city which suffers from the class struggle, where every day the rich are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer.

As a middle class young boy, who hadn’t have many chances to travel before, and the only contact with the world was through the internet and the media (where/as Latinamerica is totally influenced by USA American media), my idea of Germany was of a “developed” country full of huge highways, skyscrapers, high tech electronics and luxury cars, which is the western ideal for “development”.

Thanks God, I was assigned to live in a small countryside village, located in the former East Germany, where there was no tv, no internet, and the radio and mobile phone signal were weak. It was a shock in the beginning, but after a while I started understanding that life was not exactly the way I thought. I realized that my mind and lifestyle before was focused on unimportant matters and false values. It was hard to get unplugged from the world, but then I saw it as a good opportunity to start spending less time looking outside, and start looking inside myself what I actually needed.

My volunteer work took place in a Waldorf (anthroposophic) primary school, and part time in an Art School for kids. Both allowed me to get to know the German society from inside, reconsidering, appreciating or criticizing my own habits and social background. They allowed me also to apply my skills as designer and artist, in a non-industrial nor profit-focused industry.

I learned that if we want to do something for the world, we have to invest in the children first.

Besides working, experiencing a whole different family life, struggling to learn a totally new language, surviving the cold Weather and trying to get a place on the society, I had many opportunities to travel around Germany and other European countries. This enabled me to find similarities and differences between each other country getting to understand the essence of the European culture, which fed my urge to know how the world really is.

After this long year, now seen in retrospective it seems it happened too fast, I came back home with a new point of view for everything. I thought up different ideas in my mind that allowed me to have a fresh new start, to appreciate more what my country has to offer (and I missed when I was abroad), to appreciate more the people around me, to enjoy every single minute, and with the clear understanding that beyond nationalities, races, social levels or traditions,
we are just one world and what we do as individuals affects (for good or bad) the rest of us.

**I got involved with ICYE in my country as a co-worker, attended seminars, carrying out activities for the incoming volunteers, supporting those who wanted to volunteer, and specially sharing with others my experiences and knowledge as well as learning more from people every day.

Now I’m taking part in a 1 year Exchange program for Staff Office, as the Outgoing volunteers Coordinator for ICYE Mexico. **