23 Abril 2012

Well, the Municipality has officially backed out of the whopping $3,000 they promised the program.

Now, after we have interviewed and "hired" a teacher, i have to tell him he cannot start on the start date as there is no longer a position available for him.

what happened? i don't know.
last year they said they applied for the funding in their budget from the regional government and got it.
so all i can guess is that one of two things happened: 1. they never actually applied to get it in their budget, or 2. they got it and are pocketing the money

so, i ask them what we need to do to get the money and they are unwilling to play with numbers or divulge any information to me about their budget.
i explain that we will lose the program, they shrug, "it isn't that good anyways."
"excuse me? you do know your son has benefitted from the program and has improved in his classes at school leaps and bounds along with 80 other marigal youth, correct?"
a shrug. as if what i am saying is a lie, because when i show them the statistics i ran they can't even understand when i simplify that their children's improvement is significant.
a councilman, "but when the kids are in the library, they are walking around and talking. the program is very unorganized. if they were learning, they would be seated, silent, and sitting up straight."
i can't even respond to that. they know the program is designed around learning through play and art.


they tell me there just isn't enough money, they say they can't pay a salary of $300 a month for a year. I say "then tell me how much you can handle, and we will pay for less months. We will cut summer school so it is just the school year or something."
they say, "it is just that $300 a month is too much".
"if you want a professional, that is what you have to pay, that is starting wage. the option we have here is cutting the months to make up the money, not the wage."
"$300 a month is just too much."
ahhh! talking in circles.

"but it isn't, you have the money in the education budget because you applied for it and received it."
"you don't understand, srta. luz. 70% of that money has to go to an 'obra' like irrigation for the town or beautifying the plaza."
"but, mr. mayor, a library IS AN 'OBRA', and irrigation and beautifying the plaza is not education related."
obra means 'thing' like something physically constructed that you can touch
"no, you don't understand."

what i do understand is the mayor is wrong and lying at the same time.



how does one help children when their parents are so uneducated and stubborn?




now the options are

1) fight it, contact the departmental government to find out what happened with the money (hugely long process that i cannot possibly finish in the 4 months i have left... but i can try)

2) get an external donor to pay the salary, making the program not internally sustainable

3) cancel the program and move all the supplies and books to a neighboring town that is ready to receive and protect the materials with hired staff.




how do i feel about all of this? heartbroken a thousand times harder than i ever have been before.
I love these children with everything in me. I want everything for them.
my optimism for the world wains. my faith wavers. i feel weak.
I meditate and pray for compassion for these authorities.
these authorities who have never been educated and can't even understand what an opportunity they are missing.
these authorities who have not been loved healthfully by their own parents and don't know how to love their own children healthfully.


when the council members laugh at my passion for the project, when they laugh at my teaching methods i harden out of fury. but that quickly melts to complete and utter sadness that they don't understand how hard they have to work to get what they and their children need.
sadness that they don't understand that the teaching methods i use are different than what they know, but 50 years more advanced and better for learning.

perhaps they don't understand because when the children had presentations to show their parents what they had learned about 5 out of 160 parents showed up to see. you know what, those 5 were at a meeting yesterday protesting that the municipal government wasn't going to pay. they lost to the adults that don't have children living in madrigal, didn't see that their family would benefit directly from the program, and overpowered those 5 women/mothers into silence.


how can you make change for children from the bottom up if you can't motivate their parents to act for them? how can you break generational poverty if the children who contain the potential for change are never released from the grasp of their parents?