THE POWER OF EDUCATION.
Feeding Children. Educating Women.
In the Los Cabos barrios, children often go hungry. They are sent to school on empty stomachs because there is no food to give them. These children are destined to fail in school simply because of hunger. We believe in the positive long-term effects of education and that providing a school meal is a simple way to strengthen a child's chances for success in school.
Families - often led by single women - live in extreme poverty, teen pregnancy numbers top worldwide rankings, women do not finish high school or learn job skills and violence against women and children ranks among the highest anywhere. Since women are the main caretakers in the traditional Mexican family, changing a woman's self-image through education will create a generation of empowered women and break the cycle of culturally engrained negative patterns.
YOUR DONATION WILL FEED HUNGRY CHILDREN
YOUR DONATION WILL EDUCATE IMPOVERISHED WOMEN
YOUR DONATION WILL COMBAT POVERTY
Problem: With the area's massive hotel and high-end housing expansion, workers have flocked to Los Cabos from throughout Mexico to pursue employment. The result is thousands living in makeshift huts with limited income and little food.
Sarahuaro Solution: Our La Cocina De Los Niños program feeds 300 of the neediest 600 students at an elementary school located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Cabo. Their ages range from 6-12 years old - a crucial time in their development. Just down the road, the school of our second kitchen feeds 50 children. This school had 300 students when we built our kitchen - it now has 700 in the in the morning and 600 in the afternoon. Your investment will help us reach our goal to feed all these needy children.
Problem: The Mexico National Statistics Institute reports that in Mexico, for every day in 2017, two babies were born to mothers aged 10 and 11. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Mexico has the second highest teen pregnancy rate of its member nations and Los Cabos ranks among the highest in Mexico.
Sarahuaro Solution: The first goal of our women's program is to provide a safe, reliable access to tools and information that will allow them to plan and space their pregnancies. We conduct free training that will instill a sense of self-worth and show all women a better way forward.
Problem: During a visit to Los Cabos, one quickly realizes that almost every staff person with whom you come in contact with speaks English. These people hold consistent, good paying jobs. This is not the case behind the scenes - the cleaning crew, kitchen help, the gardeners. For these jobs, the minimum wage is $102.68 pesos or about US$5.50 per day. And they live where the purchase of purified water takes two days wages per week for an average family.
Sarahuaro Solution: At Sarahuaro, we believe that learning English is an essential tool in this tourist economy, so we make learning it a priority for our women.
Problem: Mother's have no access to centralized childcare which would allow them to concentrate on learning new skills.
Sarahuaro Solution: While mothers learn at our women's center, their children are safely cared for by a paid childcare worker or a certified teacher. The children engage in basic cognitive activities and outdoor play. They are fed a meal supplied by the Children's Kitchen Program, which is located about a mile away.
More than 1/3 of Mexican women between the ages of 15 and 29 do not attend school or work.
Your donation will reach these young women and give them opportunities to learn life skills and workforce skills - like speaking English - an essential tool in the tourism economy.
Only 27% of them study until high school.
Your donation will provide women of the Colonia with trade skills training. Their families and the entire community will benefit from the additional income women will bring to the home.
Without education, mothers will perpetuate these patterns by handing them down to their children and their children’s children.
You have to open their minds to another way of life. We support them, let them know they are not alone.
- Beatriz Gutierrez, Sarahuaro Counsellor