Camino Seguro Project Safe Passage

I was a volunteer for one day, as I wanted to see what this was all about.

I could not really picture a school next door to one of the big city dumps....and especially the people that would have to live this way.

I was in the "Guardaria" section of the project. This is where the 3 to 5 year old kids go. It's this huge huge garage type building.........no windows....one steel door that you lock from the inside at all times. There are no walls in this building....just "sections" that are made out of tin type siding. The toilets do not flush, you have to put water in with the buckets to remove whats in there. It gets so hot in there by the afternoon, you feel like you are in a sauna.

This was soooo different from where I was volunteering the last 3 weeks!

I was assigned to one class that had 9 students out of the regular 13 in for the day. The teacher put me right to work, helping out with an exam on colors (they only knew 3) and just playing, coloring and basically keeping them under control. They are very bad bad kids. Picture living in a dump with your parents or parent..........I'm sure you get no discipline!

Luckily it was not bath day for my class........just brushing their teeth and wash their faces day. I did see another class bath day, which is where they put the kid in this cement type sink and wash them with buckets of hot water that was just boiled. The teacher washes their hair and checks for lice. Cuts their figure nails and puts on whatever clean clothes they can find for them. They also put this powder on them to help prevent lice or whatever they can get from living in or near the dump.

They also have this makeshift kitchen where they boil milk for the kids and give this to them in the morning with a vitamin and later in the day for another glass of mild. At lunch they get served a warm meal. Very small portion- but at least they get some food for the day!

My class got to go outside for "recess". Picture playing on cement on some old old swings made out of steel, while you are locked in this other section near the dump- security guy watching over the section- and wild vultures and birds flying over the next section which is the dump!

It was so surreal for me.

Walking over to the library, in the other building (which is much nicer) was another wild experience. Trying to avoid all the dump trucks (big yellow trucks- all enclosed)...and walking by passed out people and people living in box houses on the street seemed so normal to the kids and the teacher. I kept thinking "oh my god...is this real....."

The project has anywhere from 25 to 30 volunteers at all times.......mostly young people from all over they world. Usually solicited via the internet and the volunteers stay for a good 4 to 12 months. Long term volunteer work.

Security took care of us when we had to walk over to the main building for lunch and made sure we always were safe.

There was also a medical and dental team from the USA there when I was there....not sure for how long....but it sounds like they get one every 3 months.

I was really impressed with this project and what they are trying to do to help these kids!

It's just kind of hard to see how successful they will be in getting them out of this situation.

Combating poverty through education.

http://www.safepassage.org/us/SafePassage.html