The staff at Nueva Vida have exciting news!
Hogar
Nueva Vida will experience an exciting transition this fall. We are
extending its services to a greater number of elementary age girls by
offering a day program rather then the current overnight residential
program.
Over
the past three years, we have observed a significant decline in the
number of girls living at Hogar Nueva Vida. This decline has
prompted the following question: What are the current needs of the
community in the south of Merida?
The
answer has been this: There is still a great need to assist in the
education of elementary age girls in a supervised, caring
environment, but the need for them to stay overnight in a residential
setting has abated due to better living conditions of the families.
Many families do need support in supervising, caring for and
educating their girls, but they don’t want them to be away for the
whole week. Thus we decided to transition from a Sunday night to
Friday afternoon “hogar” to a 12:00p.m.-7:00p.m. daily
“estancia”.
The
number of girls expected for next school year is already double the
number of the girls currently at Nueva Vida. We are happy to say
that of the seven girls currently living at Nueva Vida who were
planning on returning for next school year, five will be able to
participate in the estancia program since their families live nearby.
We will continue to offer a caring, supervised environment, a
nutritious lunch, showers, help with the girls’ homework,
enrichment classes and the chance to develop responsibility by doing
chores.
The
differences are these: The program and facility will be called the
“Estancia Nueva Vida”. Enrichment classes will be more frequent
and structured. English and computer classes will be held more
consistently, and art, music, field trips, and educational media will
be added to the enrichment time as well. Also a new tutoring block
will emphasize academic concepts rather than just the concrete
mechanics of a given discipline often found in their homework time.
We will be using the newly and beautifully painted “sleeping”
rooms for tutoring and enrichment activities.
Obviously,
the other major change is the daily schedule. The girls will attend
public school in the morning and arrive at Nueva Vida around noon.
They will do chores, eat lunch, play and have a large group activity
centered around values and community building. This will be followed
by a four period rotation consisting of homework completion, tutoring
of concepts, showers/reading time, and enrichment classes. By the
time this is all finished for the day, it will be 7:00 PM when family
members will arrive to take their girls home, and everyone will get a
good night’s rest to repeat the process again the next day!
