The coronavirus pandemic has affected all dimensions of daily life for millions of people around the world. The social and financial consequences are more noticeable every day. From the San José center in Ajusco (Mexico City) we have been working with the community during the months of confinement with a nutritional support program and distance educational activities for girls and boys of preschool ages, with their challenges and problems , since not all families have the means for digital and remote monitoring. The center was working in this way from the beginning of the confinement due to the pandemic, in mid-March, until the end of the school year at the end of June 2020.
For the start of the new academic year 2020-2021, the San José center team, together with the parents, considered the need to reopen the center to continue offering its services to the 115 girls and boys enrolled. The idea was to work with them with educational activities and to resume the nutritional services using the center at a quota of 40% of its capacity, while observing all the sanitary safety measures. To organize how to function in this new modality we had meetings with the parents, and receiving all their support, finally, on August 31, we reopened the doors of the center for the start of the new school year.
It was a very different beginning, compared with previous years. We are used to handling more than 100 children on a daily basis, and now receiving only a third of them makes the operation more agile: the center facilities feel calmer, with an unusual order in the classrooms, compared to working with the whole group. In the same way, we noticed that most of the children feel more welcome with a small group, they receive more attention from the teacher and they feel more sheltered. The other point to highlight is that there are almost no absences, except for illness or some matter that prevents it, since parents do not want to miss the only days that their children now have to attend the center. They are very excited and grateful to the center for this initiative and they all hope that the bad times we are experiencing due to the pandemic will soon pass and that we can return to normality.
For this new way of working, one of the preventive measures for health is the mandatory use of masks, which is a very big challenge for such young children: they lose them, bite them or forget about their use, although we try to use them correctly all the time.
The teachers are happy with this initiative, although they have to make an extra effort to achieve optimal learning results with the children. Apart from the activities they carry out with the children in the center, they continue to work remotely with the parents, sending homework, solving questions and having consultancy appointments with them when necessary.
The children of the San José center are very happy to be able to return after several months, although they do not understand very well why they are attending in small numbers, and some ask their teachers why can they just come every day. Even in these exceptional circumstances, at the San José center they receive comprehensive care, and that is what, in the end, really matters.
In the month of February, educators at Centro San José of the CSP in Mexico City plan activities for the children to learn about the importance of friendship and to work on the development of social skills.
Presently, the center attends daily to 110 children between the ages of two and six. It is quite common to witness conflicts between children. They fight for a variety of reasons: over a toy, or over any object that they believe is their own, or because a friend doesn’t want to play, or just to be first in line, or because someone made a face or stuck out his tongue or pushed them…
These fights are normal with children of this age group, and many children defend themselves by hitting a classmate or crying out of frustration. Some prefer to go tell the teachers, who tell them over and over again, “Hands are for touching, not hitting”… with irregular success.
On a daily basis, teachers at Centro San José spend much of their time resolving conflicts and misunderstandings. During the month of February, the teachers made an effort to work on the importance of friendship, in order to promote love, respect and affection among the children for their classmates.
On February 14, St. Valentine’s Day, Day of Love and Friendship, educators, together with children, organized an activity so that the children could show their appreciation to their companions at the center. They all brought a little gift to exchange with their classmates. It actually was a very moving activity, filled with thoughtful gestures and hugs.
We want to promote the bonds of friendship among the children at Centro San José, so that they learn, already at their very young age, to respect each other, to apologize when there has been a clash, to treat each other nicely and to value the others as real treasures in their lives.
In October and November, the Early Childhood Education Center of Ajusco was the site of two cooking workshops for women. “Tasteful Energy”, the pilot class, is part of the Corporate Responsibility Policy of Fenosa Natural Gas company. Their principal objectives are: strengthening the abilities of young people who are currently studying cooking, and the promotion of space for them in the labor market. This program allows youths, through a certification course, to obtain the tools that will help them begin a career in the world of gastronomy. Cooking classes with women of Ajusco was the trial course in this program, that will now be promoted in other areas of Mexico.
The objective of the workshop is to show how to make simple, affordable, quick and nutritious food for the family. A fundamental aspect of this is the careful preparation and appealing presentation of the dishes. At the end of the course, participants receive a certificate and a gift. The professionalism of the chef and his team contributed to the success of the workshops as well as the equipment they used. Also, the creativity, teamwork, appealing plate presentation, the desire to outdo themselves and the applause of the organizing team were integral in the success of the classes. All of this made the women feel that they were on an episode of the television show “Master Chef”. So, in addition to learning, they spent a few exciting days.
The Community of Saint Paul is thankful for the quality of the workshops and the beautiful and festive atmosphere created by its leaders and participants. We are already thinking about the next workshop; it could possibly be the preparation of dishes like “tacos de canasta”, a simple and affordable dish that could be sold to earn money. Hopefully, it will be soon!
In a society as demanding as ours, it is essential to create a solid educational foundation that promotes the learning and healthy development of children. This is the work that we carry out on a daily basis at the San Jose Community Center for Child Development in Mexico City.
In the 2016-2017 school year, which just ended, 36 boys and girls completed satisfactorily the preschool curriculum. On July 14, to celebrate this achievement, the children were surrounded by friends and family at a happy and grateful “end of the year” party. This is a story with a happy ending, that is repeated each year in the town of Jardines de San Juan.
The work at the center will continue with the remaining 72 boys and girls who will advance to the next level, with almost 40 more who will join the new school year, beginning at the end of August. The spaces are already filled because parents wanted to enroll their children as soon as possible, in order to give them this gift of growth, development and learning.
Since the first day of class (already in the distant past) we engaged in games, activities and learning on a daily basis. The children grew in an environment of healthy coexistence, learning to respect one another, to play together, to share what they have in the center, to accept each other and sometimes to forgive each other, after a fight. This coexistence, adequate nutrition and the tireless work of the educators, all helped to bring about this happy ending for the 2016-2017 school year. We said goodbye to 36 children who completed PreSchool 3, and now are ready to go to elementary school. In a moment as important as this one, the parents and family wanted to be close to their children. In fact, they are proud of the goals they achieved and committed to the road that lies ahead. It was an emotional day, and recognizing how much the children have grown and learned, we, too, share the joy of this happy ending.
