Child Friendly Space Program
Steven Gross, the founder of Project Joy, and Jose Idalgo, the Medical Director of the Latin American Health institute.
Listen to what they have to say about the Child Friendly Space Program. To hear his interview click
HERE
The process of opening Child-Friendly Spaces requires the collaboration and cooperation of many parties. With our partner organizations, AMURT visits each potential camp site to locate appropriate space. AMURT’s growing team of community organizers works with local leaders or camp committees to reserve the space and explain the intentions of its use. Our engineer evaluates the space and plans the construction. In some camps, three to five large white tents will be pitched, and in other camps, semi-permanent wooden structures will be built and covered with tarps.
The next step is identifying childcare "monitors". In partnership with community committees, we look for dynamic, responsible and loving teachers. From the committees' recommendations, we interview potential candidates and invite the selected ones to training.
Meanwhile, our team speaks to the camp about identifying children for participation in these spaces. The most vulnerable children between the ages of 4 and 12 are prioritized. On average we will have about 450 children at each site. One site, however, will be serving over 1400 children.
The CFS team also organizes two-day trainings here at our AMURT base for all of the monitors. The training covers the overall concept of a Child-Friendly Space and provides time for monitors to work collaboratively to create activity plans for different age groups that involve psychosocial, educational, and creative activities. The goal is to infuse the curriculum with loving and healing child-centered and experiential activities. The most recent training was attended by over 125 monitors covering four sites.
This Week’s Highlights:
· The first CFS opened this week in the yard of the AMSAI school in Delmas 31
· Over 430 children started attending the first CFS
· Children practiced karate, breathing exercises and yoga
· Children sang Neo-Humanist songs, created little playfoam sculptures and fingerpainted
· A team of specialists from the Trauma Center and Project Joy, organizations based in Boston, MA, provided workshops to monitors at two sites on psychosocial play activities and modeled activities with children
· All children received healthy snacks of milk and nutritional biscuits in addition to a hot meal of rice, beans and vegetables
