Magdalena’s story: how our sponsorships help children to escape exploitation
Magdalena and Ricardo are just two of the thousands of children in Guatemala forced to work under exploitative conditions. Instead of going to school to learn, they spend every day breaking stones to help ensure their families’ survival. The Kindernothilfe partner organisation, CEIPA, ensures that children, despite having to work, have the chance of a better future.
Quetzaltenango – Although it is blisteringly hot, 12-year-old Ricardo and his brother are wearing long sweaters to protect themselves against the scorching sun. They transport the heavy boulders from the quarry in buckets on their shoulders, sweat streaming constantly into their eyes. His older brother hammers long iron nails into a boulder the size of a small car in the attempt to break it up bit by bit into smaller pieces. Further up the slope, at the foot of the Santa Maria volcano towering over Guatemala’s second largest city, her grandfather is using a hammer and chisel to loosen another large piece. This, too, will eventually drop into the pit, hopefully without falling on top of anyone. Despite the dangers and the hard physical labour, Ricardo is happy and proud, as he says, to be able to earn some money here. Not because he thinks the work is good, but because he knows that his single mother would be unable to provide for the family without his support.
In another quarry a few hundred meters away: 8-year-old Magdalena, with no mouth or eye protection, is using a pickaxe and sledgehammer to break pieces of rock into smaller and smaller pieces. Juan, also 8 years old, is shovelling these smaller pieces through a large sieve to separate the fine rock dust from the pebble-sized chunks. His hands and face have turned white from the stone dust. Dust that is also ruining his lungs.
50 euros for four days’ work
By the quarry, rubble of various sizes lies on the ground, from powdered stone to small rocks the size of a fist. Families sell the stones to building companies throughout the region, where they are used to build roads and houses. For a truckload of broken stone, a family receives around 450 quetzals (approx. EUR 50). However, in order to earn that amount, they need to work for three or four days. In addition, they have to pay the owner of the quarry 400 quetzals per month in rent. In order to make any money at all, families labour here seven days a week from morning till night.
Hearing Ricardo talk or watching Magdalena working in the dusty heat, it is sometimes hard to tell how old these children are. But there are a few moments like these when the children have a short break and spend it fooling around or playing hide-and-seek, and then you realise that they are children like any others anywhere in the world. But if you look at all the many quarries on the edge of the town of Quetzaltenango, you have to ask yourself: what prospects do these children have in life?
Maria, a former child labourer, has escaped from poverty
Ten kilometres away at Quetzaltenango’s exhibition centre: Maria (aged 18) stands in a commercial kitchen, preparing a buffet for a forthcoming event. Maria herself worked throughout her childhood to support her family. There was no time for going to school. Despite that, this young mother of two now has a relatively well-paid job, health insurance and an entitlement to paid holiday. Maria’s story is exemplary for the way in which it is after all possible to escape from the vicious circle of poverty, inadequate education and child labour in Guatemala.
Because, like Ricardo from the quarry, Maria never went to school. And, like Ricardo, Maria is part of the indigenous population of Guatemala. That means that, even before she was born, it was very likely that she would later find herself living in absolute poverty.
The families are caught in a vicious circle: parents with large families and, in many cases, single mothers who never went to school themselves can only get poorly paid work, if any. Their children have to help the family to earn a living. 26% of children in Guatemala aged between five and fourteen have to labour, some of them under exploitative conditions and in ways that endanger their health.
Many parents do not see the point of schooling
While most children start school, as it is compulsory to do so, only 60% actually complete their primary schooling and only 39% complete it within the intended period. Many parents, lacking education themselves, do not appreciate the importance of schooling and training, so that they are indifferent, or even hostile, to their children’s school attendance. Moreover, many families face such social deprivation that their children unavoidably have to help to support them and therefore only attend school irregularly, or cease to do so entirely. Others, like Maria and Ricardo, do not even start school. Once children are too old, there is no longer any place for them in the state school system.
The only place where children can be educated is now the Centro Ecuménico de Integración Pastoral, known for short as CEIPA. It is located in the middle of the market place in Quetzaltenango. Here, child labourers have the opportunity to complete a state-recognised schooling. In order for this to work, their parents must be convinced of the need for schooling. Because only with their agreement can the children regularly attend school in the afternoon. But how is that supposed to be possible if the children’s labour is an essential source of household income?
The project will succeed only if the children can still work in the mornings and at the weekend, says Linda Ferres of Kindernothilfe’s partner organisation CEIPA. Rather than preventing child labour, it is far more feasible in the long run to improve the form that the work takes. Instead of working in quarries, children can for example perform lighter duties helping in the market. “We want to prevent the children from being forced to work and, as in the quarries, exploited”, says Linda Ferres. But that can only be achieved if a big effort is made to persuade the parents that it is the right approach. CEIPA staff therefore visit the families repeatedly to raise their awareness of the harmful effects of hard labour and to draw attention to the opportunities that will be open to the children and their families thanks to education.
This makes it important to make it clear what opportunities exist. And that is something that the project can do. Former students like Maria regularly come to visit, to tell the children and young people the story of their lives. At the school, Ricardo is not only learning how to read and write. Lunch is also provided, and a doctor regularly comes to check the children’s health. Children have space and opportunity to play. Once a month, a parents’ evening is held at the school to inform the adults about children’s rights and to help them adopt a child-centred, non-violent approach to their children’s upbringing. This aspect is of particular importance in Guatemala. “Because violence within the family and in society at large is an enormous and widespread problem”, says Anabela, a teacher at CEIPA. Therefore helping victims to recover from, and cope with, their experience of violence takes up a great deal of time at school on a daily basis.
CEIPA helps young people to find a job after they have completed their schooling
After three years, the children obtain a recognised school-leaving qualification. Then they can move on to a more advanced school. There is also the option of taking a one-year course at CEIPA’s vocational training centre. Project workers regularly assess the needs of the labour market. At present it is mainly cooks, bakers, tailors and hairdressers who are being trained. A few years ago, there was still a demand for trained cobblers. But this sector has completely collapsed because of donations of shoes from the USA. After the one-year course, CEIPA helps the children and young people to find a good job by means of traineeships and job application training. Others are offered a microcredit to help them become established as self-employed workers. Three young people, for example, have set up a small bakery and are now supplying many hotels in Quetzaltenango with freshly baked rolls.
One important component of the project is building democracy by means of opportunities for participation. The children and young people are actively involved in planning and designing the project work. In addition, they are part of the organisation of working children and young people (ONNATs = Organización de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes Trabajadores), which represents the interests and needs of working children and young people and lobbies state bodies to secure lasting improvements in their living conditions. Particularly in a country where democracy is in retreat and where the indigenous population, especially, has withdrawn from the political process on account of disillusionment, feeling inadequately represented, political education is of huge importance.
An opportunity for young people
To return to Maria: she is happy that her training has given her the opportunity to find a decently paid job, so that she can send her children to school in the regular way. For Ricardo, there is still an arduous journey to be undertaken before he can achieve that. But he has a chance, and, thanks to women like Maria, also an example to follow. Particularly in a country like Guatemala, from where thousands of children and young people flee every year, embarking unaccompanied on a dangerous journey to the USA or joining one of the criminal youth gangs, which have made Guatemala one of the most violent countries on Earth, that is extremely important.
Text and photos: Malte Pfau