Valeria at the integration center with a group of kids

After Barrio Mosconi, the circus workshop moved to El Dique, another slum in the district of Ensenada. Having set foot in both, I could tell the difference between them was that the latter has worse living conditions: informal housing and dirt roads instead of paved streets. Also, as Liliana put it very well during the meeting we had: El Dique has a bigger population, so it is able to have a Centro de Integración Comunitario. The proper translation would be “Community Integration Center,” and it is a special building provided by the government, where there is space for health initiatives as well as social development, arts, education and sports programs. This is where the circus classes took place.
I think it’s worth talking about these places and describe what they do. I often believe that I was able to get so far in a career and be so passionate about learning because, ever since I can recall, I was stimulated and challenged. Nothing was ever missing in my house, and that, I believe, is the starting point. When I first talked to the people working at the Centro Integrador, I understood their role in the kids’ life was giving them emotional support, challenging them and encouraging them to take up a profession.

Kids and teenagers who come from impoverished homes often lack not only dedication to school – they are also not encouraged to study and improve themselves. More often than not, their parents are uneducated and unemployed: a context that is born and reborn with every economic crisis. Why would they study, if they’ll never get out of this situation? I can understand this reasoning. It’s hard to make someone that is so cut down by this harsh reality, understand that things can change.

El Dique is a bleak place

This is why I value so much what they do at the integration center. I had a chance one day, when I was visiting with the circus team, to talk to Valeria, one of the coordinators of a program called El Envión (the title means “the shove, ” as when you give someone a little push so they can move forward). This program organizes different activities at the integration center. Valeria told me they try whatever seems catchier: Photography was very popular; the circus was a real hit; and painting was getting on super.

“We also give school support for subjects like foreign languages or math – or anything the kids need. You can tell they have a nice time here. Sometimes they say things like ‘I wanna miss school so I can come here all the time.’ But we tell them school is a must, and absence is not an option,” she said. “Here we give support and make a lot of activities to get them interested. The main aim is that they don’t drop out of school. When they finish secondary school, we sit together with them and a college guide and ask ‘What career will you pick?’”

I could hear the urgency and constant effort in her words.

I can tell that kids learn when they are motivated. When they find support, they can take a step forward. How do you make this happen when they stand alone, when there is no home, no conventional family? How does it work where you live?

A circus show at Barrio Mosconi, a public school

I read Pavel’s entry, and I was thinking about how extracurricular learning environments work here. Clubs obviously exist, but access to them is limited by how much money families have. Pavel suggests in his entry that people tend to look for alternatives outside of the educational model because it hasn’t kept up with the world’s development. For poverty stricken communities in my country, it’s the opposite: kids are falling out of the educational system because they can’t even keep up with its basic demands. That’s due to the fact that their needs are unmet.

Many things are being done against this trend. As far as institutions go, all public schools and some private catholic schools provide meals for the kids. For most of them, it is the only place where they can get something to eat. So schools become not just spaces to learn but also dining halls.

Then there are also political associations that work to address these needs. Usually a group of people go inside slums and spend a whole morning giving school aid to kids, or organizing different artistic workshops, like dance classes, etc.

Finally, NGOs are also trying to give new hope to young people from impoverished areas. At the NGO where I work, there is a program called the Moving Circus. The project offers circus classes to kids in poor neighborhoods, and it travels from town to town.

During the opening meeting for the circus comeback in Barrio Mosconi, a poverty-stricken neighborhood in the district of Ensenada, a lot of interesting things came up. We had managed to arrange a meeting with the head of a primary school, the head of a secondary school, the coordinator of a co-op called ‘Futuro Ensenadense,’ and the director of a sports club in Mosconi along with some primary school teachers. They agreed their main challenge is figuring out what to do with kids after school hours. Since the mornings are taken care of, many projects focus on finding extracurricular activities for students in the afternoon. Children and teenagers in this neighborhood don’t usually have a proper home to go back to after their school day is over. Their parents are either working or not looking after them, so they spend most of their free time in the street.

Later, it was the kids who took the stage...

Luis, the head of the sport club, told us how he tried to keep kids off drugs through sports. He managed to put together a football team, and a lot of the boys in the neighborhood joined. Liliana, the head of primary school, told us how they managed to bring together some volunteers who formed a readers’ group for first and second graders.

“But we couldn’t have that for long,” she said, “Because the young women in charge were very willing and enthusiastic, but they were not trained tutors.”

Truth is, skilled people’s qualities are a must when dealing with kids that come from poverty-stricken homes – and usually little ones don’t find the emotional support they need.

The moving circus in this sense was part of a solution for giving kids something to look forward to in the afternoons. But was it really? I wondered: the dire situation is so overwhelming sometimes: Is this just a drop in the ocean?

But it turns out it did make some impact in this community. Liliana told us that they had put up a small circus for the end of the year concert, and the kids had a chance to show teachers and parents their new skills. This was a total surprise to the rest of the team and me – real proof that something had changed here.

Getting involved is the most important thing...

In her article, Kathrin mentioned Germany’s clubs where young people have the opportunity to attend courses they’re interested in – to learn something new or pick up additional skills. I found the topic really interesting because I also try to find ways of getting extra education in my life.

In any generation, there will be young people with no desire to study. However, among people I work and communicate with, the majority are eager to go on and get a degree. The problem is that the conventional model of education can’t fully satisfy their needs as it hasn’t kept pace with the world’s development.

For most people, school, college or their jobs just aren’t enough – people have a natural need to experience something unusual or new. That can come by way of a hobby or courses that go beyond school or university. For instance, I had drawing and piano lessons as a kid, but after several months, I realized that it wasn’t my cup of tea. After all, a parent’s wish to educate a child may not coincide with what the child likes! My sister, on the other hand, continued the first course. Now she is a good artist and studies design while I have favored languages and economics.

...whether with music...

The thing is: about three decades ago we used to have a state youth organization that organized summer camps and was mostly responsible for giving teenagers stuff to do in their free time. That may sound promising. But the downside was that the state wanted to have so much control over citizens’ lives that there were practically no societies apart from the state-run organizations. Now the situation is just the opposite. The choice of private courses is quite enough (though some are available only in big cities), but not every family can afford them. The best solution is if you notice the lack of something you are interested in, go and organize it yourself, and share it with your friends, who will share it with theirs and so on.

That is how my friends started a bookshop, which has had regular lectures on art, literature and poetry or small concerts and masterclasses – things a typical school doesn’t always provide. Thanks to this club I found people with similar interests and broadened my outlook, gaining some new skills along the way. It’s marvelous to spend a cozy evening absorbed in board games or reading the works of some promising writer (but not well-known in Russia) among friends.

...or at a game night.

Of course, those activities are mostly about one’s mental development. As for the physical side of things (and that is necessary for building a balanced human being) – you have a good choice of clubs if you can afford a course fee. For instance, I think motorbiking or auto racing could be popular among teenagers as there are Russian drivers in well-known car-racing championships, but the infrastructure – at least in our region – needs expansion.

 The more clubs a city has, the better it is for its teenagers and students! It results in an open-minded generation that is used to different situations and can more easily find solutions