Slum Daycares--healthy, laughing children

When Dr. Faye Brown first visited one of SIFAT’s 28 newly-acquired daycares in Quito slums known as the Belt of Misery, she was struck by the lack of laughter. “I thought, ‘These are some of the saddest little children I’ve ever seen’,” she reported to SIFAT staff and guests when she recently spoke of her mission. “They rarely even smiled.”

By U.S. standards, the former government-run daycares were hardly recognizable as such. Small rooms with dirt floors and leaking ceilings contained 20 to 40 children sitting quietly in a corner. Showing little expression or emotion, the children simply sat. Malnutrition and chronic hunger had taken their toll. They had never been taught to play and had little energy for the curious investigations of preschoolers.

Yet they were the fortunate ones. Many young children of the slums are locked alone in rooms or tied by the ankle just outside the house. Loving, desperate mothers know it is unsafe to let their children roam the streets and they themselves must work long hours to bring home food. Now, with the cooperation of Dr. Faye Brown, Cecilia De Cobo and many others, SIFAT is helping the local mothers establish safe, nurturing, educational daycares for their children.

While volunteer teams have worked on the buildings, Dr. Faye Brown has created an integrated curriculum of early childhood development. Revising a quality curriculum available in Spanish, Dr. Brown added components of spiritual development. The children will learn about themselves, about feelings, about others, will acquire thinking and motor skills and will learn about Jesus Christ.

With this prepared, she and a team traveled to Quito and taught the curriculum and its principles to local mothers and daycare workers. The mothers and workers learned that a child tied in a blanket to a parent’s back does not receive the necessary physical and mental stimulation to develop properly. Emphasizing simple solutions was key—for example, painted stones were used to teach colors and counting. Materials on hand became tools for education.

With the motto, “Each one will teach one,” they hope to spread these fundamentals of development to mothers throughout the area. SIFAT’s goal is empowerment, to break the cycle of poverty through education. Parents who have the resources to feed and clothe their own kids will turn to their neighbors and begin to develop as a community. Dr. Brown explains, “Early years are when a child learn to love or hate. If they learn that they have value and are capable, that they can love and grow, they will not have to riot or blow themselves up in order to feel useful and worthy.”

Our work with these children and mothers has just begun, but already we have witnessed great things. Upon returning from her most recent trip, Dr. Brown reported, “The children are laughing!”