New Dawn Community Center

Sajquilles, Montúfar, Guatemala

Beneficiaries:
Children aged 6 months to 6 years, and their moms

Sajquilles is a small mountain village approximately an hour’s drive from Guatemala City. As in many areas of Guatemala, the poverty is extreme. This program is a community-based child care center that provides a safe and educational environment for young children whose families are primarily engaged in the production of fireworks in their own homes. The community-operated center (New Dawn Center) offers child care to keep children safe and out of the dangerous home activity. Monthly classes and support for mothers whose children are cared for at the center are designed to empower the women personally and professionally. At the request of Aldeas Infantiles, Lift the Children will help address the issue of family violence, which is a pervasive problem throughout Guatemala.

The community of Sajquilles donates the space and elects a citizen committee – a "family committee" to oversee management of the center. Community mothers, trained by other paid facilitators, receive a monthly stipend to cook and care for the children. Lift the Children’s assistance strengthens the New Dawn Center to enable it to meet other family and community needs beyond child care. We hope to introduce strategies that will help the family committee identify community assets and needs and develop the human resources in their village.

Although the international parent organization, SOS Kinderdorf, was originally founded to provide family style homes for orphaned children in small "child villages", the Guatemalan SOS organization is now focusing its work on family strengthening activities designed to provide the early family supports that have been shown to prevent abuse, neglect, or abandonment.