Colombia

A NETWORK OF TOY LIBRARIES TO FIGHT VIOLENCE AND POVERTY

Context

For 26 years, Mission Enfance has been working in Colombia to combat social and domestic violence, the effects of drugs and crime, of which children are the primary victims. The peace agreements between the guerrillas and the Colombian government have failed: massacres, kidnappings, extortion and murders have multiplied over the past two years. The guerrillas of yesterday have transformed themselves into drug traffickers, and cocaine production is on the rise. This situation is having dangerous effects on the Colombian population.

Mission Enfance fights against violence against children in the slums of Bogota, in the Ciudad Bolivar neighbourhood where millions of people displaced by the guerrilla war have settled, but also in other regions of Colombia, through our three toy libraries. In these activity centres, children learn through play the rules of living in society and the respect they deserve and owe to others. In twenty-four years, the association has created a genuine mutual aid network with three centres, each focusing on the problems encountered by children: racial denigration in Condoto in Choco, among Afro-descendants, the former slaves of the conquistadors; neglect and poverty for the Amazonian Indians in Puerto Narino and Zaragoza. In Peru, where our association also organises mobile toy libraries, the results on the children are striking: they are gradually coming out of their apathy since coming into contact with our teams. Our mobile toy libraries reach out to isolated children in Choco, Boyaca and the Amazon.

Goal

Help children in shantytowns or isolated areas on the borders of Colombia to live their childhood, to get out of violence, and create a generation of responsible adults.

Operation of three toy libraries (toy librarians' salaries, toy supplies, staff training, building maintenance and refurbishment) and we also work through our mobile toy libraries among the Amazonian Indians in Boyaca and Choco, in order to reach the most isolated children in Colombia.

This project is led and supervised by our local coordinator, Françoise Bardon. Each child is monitored by local youth workers who help them to cope with the violence they experience on a daily basis in their families. In Bogota in particular, football, basketball and table tennis tournaments are organised to attract 13-year-olds who hang around on the streets. The children also benefit from an academic support programme, and a baby play centre welcomes children under the age of 4 and their parents.

Our partners :

The municipalities and departments of Colombia are participating in the initiative by providing venues and covering the costs of staff outside the Mission Enfance team. Mission Enfance is the project leader and implementer through its local private non-profit association, Mission Enfance Ninos del Paraiso, which was founded in 1998.