Charity

Junicon Collaboration with the Hope International Development Agency

Hope is a non-profit organization focused on helping underprivileged children and marginalised communities around the world. Since 2011 Junicon has collaborated with Hope in a project that supports young people of indigenous groups to obtain a higher education at the Pamulaan Center, a university for indigenous groups in the Southern Philippines. After finishing their education at the Pamulaan Center, these young people return to their hometowns and become leaders in their community development. 

More info can be found under:

• http://hope.or.jp/our-projects-en/projects-by-country/philippines/?lang=en

• http://pamulaan.org

Other Completed Projects:

2011: Junicon supported the Education Without Borders’ (ESF) program to improve the quality of the educational system in south-central Peru.

During 2011, Junicon supported ESF’s project to improve the quality of the educational system in the Apurímac region of Peru.

65% of Apurímac is rural and agricultural. 69.5% of the population lives in poverty with an average monthly income of 188nuevos soles (about 50€ or $70).

Almost all children aged 6 to 16 are enrolled in school (90.5%), but only 61% of these children finish their primary education in a satisfactory way, which brings into question the efficacy of the educational system.

There is also a shortage of educational materials and limited access to locally contextualized resources.

Local institutions and civil society have driven a Regional Education Reform project and ESF’s goal was to strengthen this quality improvement process in order to reverse the low levels of academic performance in Apurímac.

The mission was divided into three components:

• The design and implementation of a Regional Library System.

• The production of innovative educational materials contextualized within the cultures of Apurímac.

• The creation of communication products (radio and local TV programs) with an intercultural focus.

Junicon’s support went to point 2 above, specifically the putting together of an “Apurímac Atlas” on DVD, which was distributed in 1,734 schools in all 7 provinces of the region. The material in the atlas was created with the consultation of local educators.

In order to maximize the DVD’s utility, teachers were trained in its use, and the DVD can be copied and shared. 

The atlas, in both Quechua and Spanish, contains:

• Extensive information on the region (nature, history, culture and traditions, political organization, economic activity) presented in age specific formats; 
• Guides for teachers and supporting materials with information on methodologies, class recreation, preparation of exercises, self-evaluation forms, and formats for lesson plans, with a focus also on valuing the indigenous culture.

2010: Junicon sponsored Education Without Borders’ program to promote the rights of street children in the Dominican Republic

In the last 50 years, the Dominican Republic has experienced excessive growth, characterized by migrations from the countryside to the city. These migrations have caused uneven urbanization and the proliferation of shantytowns lacking the minimum sanitary conditions.    

The country is number 98 out of the 173 countries in the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Program. In addition, it is one of the Latin American countries spending the least amount of public funds on education and health (1.2% and 1.9% respectively).

Due to a great increase in the last 20 years, there are close to 100 million children in the world currently living on the street. In Santo Domingo, many of them flee their homes in poor neighborhoods because of physical abuse (52.63%) or malnutrition (10%)*. Specifically, more than 55% of the Dominican population aged 12 years old and under, and 49% of the population aged 13-18 is poor**.  

Without any other options, these children on the street look for a way to survive, a place to work and their only source of income. In this environment, their most basic rights are violated. They can’t meet their basic needs adequately; they don’t have access to education, nor healthcare. They resort to petty theft to survive and travel in groups. All this causes society to reject them and, on many occasions, they are roughly mistreated and/or arrested arbitrarily.

The majority of boys, girls, and adolescents living on the street are male. Girls are much less visible because many are “recruited” by prostitution networks. Their ages vary from 7 to 17. Many of them buy and use drugs to forget their suffering and/or to calm their hunger. Their everyday reality is marked by indifference and exclusion.

Of these children, around 150,000 do not attend school. The main issues for these children are***:

• Family violence

• Rejection and social marginalization

• Violence and a lack of safety in the neighborhoods where they live

• Lack of communication

• Poverty in their homes

• Burden of domestic work

The goal of this project is to improve the protection of children’s rights in the Dominican Republic via their promotion, defense, and preservation. This project believes this improved situation would result from strengthening and enhancement of the direct attention/services given to street children via the incorporation of a focus on their rights; thestrengthening of training/education and inter-institutional coordination on the national level; the creation of community prevention networks in high risk areas; and the consolidation of community consciousness raising and training.  

For this reason, the target population is made up of precisely boys, girls, and adolescents living on the street and the groups that are more involved in the promotion, care, and defense of children’s rights: teachers, mothers, community directors, government representatives, etc.  Various components are involved in this project (direct attention to and mentoring of street children, creation of networks, consciousness raising education, strengthening and/or consolidation of the organization). All these components are central or peripheral to the goals set out in this project.

Please see: http://www.educacionsinfronteras.org/es/97113 for more details.

* According to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean – CEPAL 2005.
** Data from a study on street children in the Dominican Republic conducted by Niños del Camino and the Center for Social Studies. P. Juan Montalvo (2001).
*** According to the National Consultation on the Rights of Children (2002) on 227 children aged 6 to 12.

2009: Junicon worked with Education Without Borders to fight Chagas Disease in Bolivia.

Chagas Disease affects between 16 and 18 million people, killing 50,000 annually. Bolivia is the country with the highest number of people affected: 13% of the deaths of people aged 15-75 years old in this country are due to Chagas. Approximately 50% of the country’s total population is at risk of contracting the disease. The infection rate in children younger than 5 years old reaches 11% in urban centers and 70% in rural areas.

During 2009, Junicon supported an initiative of Education Without Borders (ESF in Spanish) to control and reduce Chagas Disease in Bolivia.

One of the main goals of the program was the creation of Vector Information Posts (PIV in Spanish) and the training of leaders to occupy these posts, both in the community sphere and in schools. These Information Posts allow schoolchildren, their families and all inhabitants of local communities to benefit from a unified reference point for everything related to the disease. By being linked with the primary healthcare system, the Information Posts publicize places where free diagnosis and treatment are available for children under 15 years of age.

28 nearly self-sustainable PIVs were created through this project and improvements including coordination between municipal authorities for Health and Education were made to over 150 PIVs nationwide. Publications were designed to educate about the disease, its control, and prevention. These were used in training, distributed among the local population and made available at PIVs.

In addition, the program monitored the sustainable maintenance of structural improvements in housing. A presumed 80% of Chagas infections are a result of the bite of the vinchuca, an insect that lives in the cracks of walls and/or straw roofs of adobe housing. This insect is mainly found in rural areas and in poor urban neighborhoods in Latin America. Improved housing cuts down on the proliferation of the vinchuca and the subsequent infection rates.

Lastly, grassroots organizations involved in the initiative strengthened their negotiation and organization skills, increasing the self-sustainability and success of the program over the long run.

Junicon is proud to have been a part of this successful project. Please see: http://www.educacionsinfronteras.org/es/53589 for more details.