Panama Award Nominees are Heroes for Youth

November 17, 2014

3 min read

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Panama Award Nominees are Heroes for Youth

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Three directors of Youth Outreach Centers and a national volunteer leader have been nominated for “Heroes for Panama” award, which one of the country’s largest TV networks bestows each year.

Panamanians will vote online to determine if nominees Carolina Freire, Eduardo Barsallo, Edelgar Macre and Frey Javier Garcia will win the ultimate prize—a cash award they can put toward their volunteer work.

The winner will be announced Nov. 25.

The four nominees were partners in Creative Associates International’s Alcance Positivo Project, which has continued improving the lives of young people thanks to deep private sector and civil society support. Creative’s role ended in October 2013.

In 24 de Diciembre, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Panama City, for example, Barsallo is combatting dysfunctional, incomplete families and high rates of school dropout and crime with tutoring, job training and sports leagues.

His Youth Outreach Center has benefited more than 500 young people aged 12 to 29, who learn to use and repair computers, earn money through a sign and daycare business, receive counseling, study English and even practice their barbering skills in a Santa Claus chair.

Not content with local change, the Fundacion Auydando a Vivir Barsallo works nationally to unite the nonprofit and private sectors in bringing opportunities to young people from all over Panama.

“I am passionate about this project because I believe in giving opportunity to the youth, and above all, to the ones who are at social risk,” Barsallo says.

His Youth Outreach Center is among more than 20 set up or supported by Creative to address growing youth crime and violence in Panama.

Creative’s model has proved successful across Central America, where 201 Outreach Centers now provide opportunities to socialize and build confidence through games and sports, boost young people’s academic performance and life skills through tutoring and mentoring, and learn marketable job skills.

“And so, together, we make progress little by little and create a much fairer and more inclusive society,” says award nominee Garcia, who runs a Youth Outreach Center and a Parish school for 650 students across town in the “red zone” of El Chorillo.

Garcia says one of his greatest joys is having someone come up to him to say a course he took at the school or center enabled him to make a living, and feed his family.

These local efforts are starting to coalesce in Panama, as foundations, nonprofits and businesses come together in associations and networks built to encourage and facilitate volunteering and social action.

Freire created the national volunteer center in Panama and—with Creative’s support—Ponte en Algo, the first virtual platform that connects people with 140 social organizations that could use their help.

She believes volunteering is a personal and social mission and a requirement to transform society. But it’s still nice to be noticed.

“Volunteers are people who do not wait, they take action, they decide to transform lives and communities, and we accept and we are very pleased with this Heroes nomination and really take it as recognition of those people who are active in making a better Panama,” Freire says.

If you ask these heroes, these efforts truly make a difference.

“We have succeeded in changing kids’ lives,” says Edelgar Macre, Executive Director of a Youth Outreach Center in Colon.

His message to young people: There are opportunities.

Macre’s center uses jujitsu as a teaching tool to help young people find discipline, respect and inner peace. Coach to Panama’s national jujitsu team, he’s even brought several of his students to international competitions—where they’ve brought home the gold.

“I don’t feel that I’m a hero, because I’m not alone in this fight,” Macre says of his award nomination.

He may nevertheless be recognized at one, when the winner of the Heroes for Panama awards is announced on Nov. 25.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Study: Central America crime prevention works

November 5, 2014

5 min read

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Study: Central America crime prevention works

By Jillian Slutzker

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Community-based crime and violence prevention programs are succeeding in improving security in at-risk neighborhoods across Central America, according to a new study by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project.

The three-year study, which assessed citizen’s attitudes, perceptions and behaviors surrounding crime and violence in their communities after years of intensive community-based prevention activities, found that 51% fewer residents reported being aware of murders, extortion or blackmail.

Commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the study reported that 35% fewer residents reported avoiding dangerous areas out of fear of crime, 25% fewer residents reported being aware of illegal drug sales and 14% fewer residents perceived youth in gangs as a problem.

Stemming crime in a region with the highest murder rates in the world and neighborhoods plagued by nacro-trafficking and gang violence is a prerequisite to achieving long-term sustainable growth.

“We can’t succeed as a development agency unless we also help reduce crime and violence,” said Mark Feierstein, Associate Administrator for USAID, speaking at an October 30 event at the Wilson Center to discuss the study’s findings. “What this [study] shows is that prevention does in fact work….What we need to do now is scale this up and scale this out.”

Scaling up and scaling out, however, requires increased support—political and monetary—from the U.S. government, other donors and Central American governments.

Guillermo Cespedes, Crime and Violence Prevention Advisor at Creative Associates International, says the promising results of the study should only serve to bolster support for prevention programs.

“This study in fact gives us tools to develop more political will,” said Cespedes, who is the former Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles for Gangs and Violence Prevention. “I’m not sure that it would make sense for an elected official to take on a problem that doesn’t have a solution attached to it. So I think this study is extremely important in unpacking it….really looking at the ingredients that make programs successful rather than the label of a program.”

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Youth and community at the core of prevention

Over the study period, USAID-funded community-based interventions deployed a comprehensive package of crime and violence prevention activities.

“It wasn’t one single medication. It was a public health model recognizing that the problem of crime and violence is complicated and requires a multifaceted treatment,” said Mitch A. Seligson, Founder and Senior Advisor of the Latin America Public Opinion Project.

Prevention initiatives in crime-affected communities included launching municipal crime prevention committees, improving street lighting and establishing youth outreach centers that provide a safe place for at-risk youth for recreation, mentorship, and job training instead of engaging in gang activity or violence on the streets.

The outreach center model was pioneered by Creative in 2006 in Guatemala and has since provided youth in at-risk communities throughout El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Panama with safe spaces and programs that address the factors that make youth vulnerable to violence. Creative has launched 201 outreach centers around the region.

Cited in the study, an outreach center coordinator in for Creative’s Alianza Joven Honduras program noted the effect the outreach centers have on getting kids off the streets, where violence occurs, and in the process improving community members’ perceptions of security.

“At the Outreach Centers…all these children, they have been out on the streets for a good while, and lately, at 2 p.m. when we open our doors, they’re waiting at the gate,” said the coordinator. “….Before, they were out on the streets, and they would jump up on the cars and do violent things….Now they come over here, and this is their entertainment place.”

The study found that the outreach center methodology, along with family-centered secondary prevention activities that work to change the behavior of at-risk youth, and community initiatives that partner with religious authorities, school administrators and community leaders, are effective approaches to crime prevention and smart alternatives to the “lock them up” model of previous years.

“We think of crime prevention as the purview of the criminal justice system, and there are lots of other levers that we have,” said Roseanna Ander, Founding Executive Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, who spoke at the event on the study’s findings.

The power of perceptions of security

The study, which analyzed interviews with 44 focus groups and more than 29,000 respondents, including teachers, police officers, youth and community leaders, compared 65 treatment communities to 62 control communities in a randomized control trial across El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama.

By assessing perception and behaviors rather than relying solely on police reports, the researchers were able to gather a more accurate reading on the changes in citizens’ daily lives and feelings of security.

“Reporting crime is inversely related to the amount of crime,” explained Seligson.

In Honduras, which has the highest murder rate in the world and soaring levels of violent crime, for example, less than one-fifth of survey respondents were willing to report crime for fear of retribution among other reasons. In Panama, on the other hands, levels of crime are lower but victims were more willing to come forward.

“We want more than the police can give us,” said Seligson. “That is, just the recording of a burglary or robbery doesn’t tell us everything we need to know. [In this study] we have a lot more information in terms of people’s fears of walking through their neighborhoods. We can’t get that out of a police report.”

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Prevention now or pay the price later

Investing in crime and violence prevention today is a cost-effective alternative to dealing with the consequences of leaving communities in Central America to tackle these problems alone, the study’s authors noted.

In fiscal year 2014, 68,541 unaccompanied children from Central America immigrated to the U.S. and were apprehended at the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

For many of these children, risking the dangerous journey alone to the U.S. in hopes of a safer, brighter future represented their only chance of escape from targeted threats of violence and poverty back home.

Creative’s youth outreach centers, along with a comprehensive package of community-based prevention activities, is tilting the balance so that youth can remain in their communities and still have opportunities to grow, learn and thrive in a safe environment.

Prevention of course has its costs, Feierstein says, but he says it is more costly not to do it.

“We’re seeing the impact on the economies and just the social fabric in Central America. We’re seeing the immigration impact…,” he said. “We can either make very relatively modest investments in these regions, or we can spend a lot more money on our side of the border dealing with the children who are coming here.”

In its concluding policy recommendations, the study supports Feierstein’s assessment. Its first bold recommendation reads, “Make community-based violence prevention programs a frontline weapon in reducing crime and violence.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

New centers for youth in El Salvador

November 5, 2014

4 min read

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New centers for youth in El Salvador

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]With the inauguration of 72 new youth outreach centers in 13 municipalities across El Salvador, youth living in many of the most crime-affected communities will now have access to a safe space for recreation, as well as opportunities for personal and professional growth.

With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Creative Associates International opened the new centers in the last three months, bringing the total number of outreach centers in El Salvador to 113—and five more are planned to open by the end of 2014. In all of Central America, there are 201 outreach centers.

“These outreach centers will make a difference,” said Harold Sibaja, who leads Creative’s El Salvador Crime and Violence Prevention Project, at the opening of the Estanzuela Outreach Center in the municipality of Quezaltepeque on September 8. “Many times, our youth are lost in the violence due to lack of opportunities, a lack of a place to be safe or a lack of direction. The outreach center is the place where you have all that and more.”

The 72 new outreach centers, which are expected to benefit more than 25,000 youth, are part of the USAID-funded El Salvador Crime and Violence Prevention Project. The five-year project works to bolsters the ability of communities, municipalities and national institutions to address violent crime.

Organizers and local officials report a decline in crime near the outreach centers.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Epidemic levels of homicides

With a homicide rate of 41.2 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2013, El Salvador is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

In the first nine months of 2014, the murder rate averaged 66.6 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the total number of homicides for 2014 is expected to surpass last year’s total by more than 1,000. In May of this year, murder rates spiked to more than double rates in May of the previous year.

Young people are both victims and perpetrators of these acts of violence.

U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Mari Carmen Aponte, speaking at an inauguration in the municipality of Usulután on September 5, recognized the outreach centers’ vital role in the community.

“Today’s children and youth now have a safe place where they can study, have fun, learn new skills and new values,” the U.S. Ambassador said at the El Calvario Outreach Center. “Parents will no longer have to worry about where their children are, because now they will be in the outreach centers.”

To ensure their long-term sustainability, Creative’s 72 new centers have been designed and launched together with community-based organizations, faith-based organizations and municipal governments.

“I have always believed that the door to the development of municipalities is education, and today is the day we are opening that door of learning, because that is our responsibility as mayors—to open paths to youth,” said Jesus Medina, Mayor of the municipality of Conchagua, speaking at the opening of the Conchagua Outreach Center on August 28.

Reaching beyond youth, the outreach centers will bring positive opportunities and violence reduction to the community at large. Creative’s outreach center methodology places community coordinators and volunteers in leadership roles to support and sustain center activities.

“The outreach center is a gift to this community,” says Edenilson Flores, Coordinator of the Azacualpa Outreach Center in the municipality of Ilobasco. “It is a gift that we all must keep, use and care for.”

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Private sector support

The private sector is also taking a lead role in developing and equipping the new centers.

In a $2.8 million alliance with the project, Microsoft Corp. has outfitted centers across El Salvador with educational software applications, including Office 365, Microsoft Mathematics 4.0 and Microsoft Worldwide Telescop for 800 computers.

The company will also provide training to more than 130 information technology coordinators on the platform and other programs accessible to beneficiaries through the Cloud.

For local companies, supporting the outreach centers is part of a larger corporate strategy to contribute to the national effort to combat violence.

The telecommunications company Claro El Salvador will be providing Internet service to all 72 new outreach centers as well as 200 jobs for youth from vulnerable communities

In the municipality of Acajutla, the warehousing company Almacenadora del Pacífico (ALMAPAC) has contributed $40,000 to purchase computers in two outreach centers, citing the importance of equipping spaces to provide an alternative to violence for children and youth. The company’s staff are serving as volunteers at the centers.

In the municipality of Soyapango, the AGRISAL group, through its World Plaza Mall, contributed $20,000 to a new outreach center in the Río Las Cañas community to purchase computer equipment and provide training materials and shirts to beneficiaries in several communities for the next two years.

With the investment of the private sector, backing of municipal leaders and engagement of local civil society groups and community members, the 72 new outreach centers are built on a solid foundation to support Salvadoran youth in at-risk communities with positive opportunities for growth and development.

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Alianza Joven Honduras kick it with professional U.S. soccer team

October 22, 2014

1 min read

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Alianza Joven Honduras kick it with professional U.S. soccer team

By Jillian Slutzker

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New program to boost livelihoods of ethnic Tibetans in China

October 20, 2014

3 min read

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New program to boost livelihoods of ethnic Tibetans in China

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Oct. 20, 2014 – A new program will support efforts to improve sustainable livelihoods of up to 18,000 ethnic Tibetans in China’s Sichuan province, Creative Associates International announced today. Focusing on communities in and around the provincial capital of Chengdu, the U.S.-supported program will sharpen the entrepreneurial skills of ethnic Tibetans working in areas such as eco-tourism, as well as boost productivity of herders, artisans and business owners. It will also enhance the competitiveness of ethnic Tibetan businesses in local, regional and international markets. Called the “Sichuan Market Development Project (previously Support for Ethnic Tibetans in China),” the five-year, $7.5-million program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development is projected to reach 18,000 ethnic Tibetans directly, while indirectly more than 70,000 will see economic gains. “Creative believes in inclusive economic growth that lifts up all members of a community,” says M. Charito Kruvant, CEO of Creative. “This program will provide ethnic Tibetans with the skills and knowledge to achieve sustainable livelihoods and also reap the benefits of a changing and growing market economy.” Economic development in China’s Western region in recent years has created significant growth but has also presented challenges for traditional, pastoral ethnic Tibetans.

Combining local knowledge with livelihoods expertise

Creative’s implementing team has extensive experience in economic growth, sustainable livelihoods and agriculture, as well as strong relationships with both the Chinese government and the ethnic Tibetan community. The program team includes two local partner organizations: Machik, an organization with expertise promoting entrepreneurship in Western China; and SynTao Co., a Chinese investment firm emphasizing socially responsible investment in ethnic Tibetan-owned businesses. Two international organizations—Aid to Artisans and Plateau Perspectives—are part of Creative’s implementing team. Adding to the expertise of its partners, Creative has a trusted track record of implementing livelihoods projects in challenging environments including Yemen, Pakistan and Colombia. “Creative’s extensive on-the-ground experience improving value chains in emerging economies and crisis-affected communities globally prepares us well for improving the livelihoods of ethnic Tibetans in this region,” says Monty Palmer, Director of Creative’s Economic Stabilization and Recovery practice area. “We look forward to combining our expertise with the local knowledge and experience of our partners to bring economic gains to traditional ethnic Tibetan communities.” Through grant-making and training, the program will deliver technical expertise and capacity building to trusted local organizations with a long history of livelihoods work in ethnic Tibetan communities.

About Creative Associates International

Creative Associates International works with underserved communities by sharing expertise and experience in education, economic growth, governance and transitions from conflict to peace. Creative is the second-largest company owned by women that works with the U.S. government. Based in Washington, D.C., Creative has active projects in more than 15 countries. Since 1977, it has worked in nearly 90 countries and on almost every continent. Recognized for its ability to work rapidly, flexibly and effectively in conflict-affected environments, Creative is committed to generating long-term sustainable solutions to complex development problems.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

PANAMA: Outreach centers are oases for at-risk youth

September 27, 2014

2 min read

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PANAMA:

Outreach Centers are an oasis for at-risk youth

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Despite Panama’s significant economic growth, pockets of poverty remain—and youth are the most vulnerable. Explore how communities have organized to provide at-risk youth with opportunities, while trying to stem the temptation of gang life, through Creative’s three-year Alcance Positivo program.

Among Alcance Positivo’s successes: It developed 22 youth Outreach Centers in five municipalities, which assisted nearly 10,000 youth ages 12-29; and it provided direct funding to a 107 organizations benefitting more than 43,400 youth through violence prevention community projects, including training in life skills, entrepreneurship, vocational training and other cultural activities to create a healthy alternative to engaging in criminal activity.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]

PANAMA: WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE COMPANY IS GOOD FOR THE COMMUNITY

Panama City—There are two Panamas: the rich, and the poor. Most people here live parallel lives. But a growing number of companies are getting involved in their communities—and reaping the benefits as these worlds combine.

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PANAMA: YOUTH FIND SAFETY & OPPORTUNITY AT OUTREACH CENTERS

Kids in Panama don’t have it easy. Besides gangs, drugs and climbing violence they face a lack of opportunities for play and work. Creative’s Youth Outreach Centers provide a place where young people—even from opposing groups—can come to just be kids. They play games and sports, practice their computer and English skills, start small businesses and learn valuable skills for life. Watch how these centers are helping kids and communities in Panama City turn things around.

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YOUTH FIGHT VIOLENCE CLOWNING AROUND IN PANAMA

Panama City – Ten stories up, children pause their soccer scrimmage to peek over the railing-less roof of a colossal teal apartment building. A naked man is visible from a fourth-floor window. Behind, a river serves as a haven for drug users, and a repository for the weapons gang members toss out of windows when the police show up.

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PANAMA’S “TWO WORLDS” COME TOGETHER FOR YOUTH

Panama City—The sleek executive offices of ENSA, one of Panama’s largest electric distribution companies, are a world apart from the seaside city of Colón, where rotting buildings and open sewage are the backdrop for joblessness, poverty and violent crime.

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FOR THE FIRST TIME, YOUTH IN PANAMA DREAM THEIR FUTURES

Panama City—There used to be a line here that you could not cross, guarded by men with guns. It separated the American Canal Zone, with its greenery, nice schools and the YMCA—constructed to offer workers with “entertainment of an elevating character”—from the rest of Panama City.

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For the First Time, Youth in Panama Dream their Futures

September 27, 2014

7 min read

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For the First Time, Youth in Panama Dream their Futures

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Panama City—There used to be a line here that you could not cross, guarded by men with guns. It separated the American Canal Zone, with its greenery, nice schools and the YMCA—constructed to offer workers with “entertainment of an elevating character”—from the rest of Panama City.

The line is here still, though no one guards it anymore. It divides the posh streets where “zonies” grew up attending English-language schools from the run-down dirty blocks where just a few years ago it was too violent to risk passing through by car.

Pastor Ivan Richards grew up in this neighborhood called Chorillo, in a single room he shared with his mother, grandmother and seven brothers. Most of the food he ate came from the free meals the Red Cross doled out from its building on Calle E.

Call it Calle E today and Pastor Richards will get mad. It’s “Avenida La Paz” now, he says with a smile softening completely serious eyes. Peace Street. If everyone calls it that, he says, it will be so.

Pastor Richards runs the Santa Ana youth Outreach Center on this street, a place where neighborhood kids can come to play soccer, do their homework, use the computers and go to church services. There are 22 such centers in some of Panama’s most violent communities, established with support from Creative Associates International’s Community Youth at Risk program, known locally as Alcance Positivo.

13 factors that increase vulnerability

The three-year program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is designed to lower the risk factors that lead youth into crime and violence by strengthening community and municipal participation in violence prevention and working with the government on reducing school drop-out rates and increasing job training and placement opportunities.

The centers combat violent crime like the 800 murders that took place in 2009, and the youth delinquency that feeds the hungry ranks of drug-dealing gangs.

Outreach centers like Santa Ana offer more than physical protection from a tough outside world: Creative and the USAID identified 13 factors that increase young people’s vulnerability to getting involved in illicit activities, like low self-esteem and limited job prospects.

The program created a model that strengthens five protective factors that keep them safe, healthy and productive instead—factors like having a way to creatively use free time, and a caring adult mentor like Pastor Richards.

“When you look at primary violence prevention, a lot of times, it’s the same type of activities you’d use for positive youth development,” says Alcance Positivo’s Director Michael McCabe. “It’s a safe space for non-school hours. It’s looking at mentors and the role of caring adults. It’s how do you improve formal and informal education and life skills opportunities, how do you create those first job opportunities for young people and give them a sense of civic participation. That’s what we call the Power of Five.”

Instead of finding a sense of belonging in a gang, they find it among peers, teammates and coaches at the Outreach Centers.

They are told for the first time to “dream their future” and develop a life plan—and then gather the skills that will enable them to make it reality.

A new approach, a new perspective

From the very spot where the Red Cross used to hand out food to the little boy who would grow up to become Pastor Richards, the Santa Ana Outreach Center now sits proudly under his direction. Creative’s Alianza Positivo joined forces with Richards to expand and fund the center, enabling him to start an after-school reinforcement program with math and English tutoring.

Children, teens, even little kids used to wander alone outside at all hours of the day and night, roving escapees from schools offering low-quality education or homes just as dangerous as the streets.

Now, neon-clad kids slip into the adjoining soccer field, learn the drums and guitar and play ping pong with peers they might previously have counted as enemies. Nearly 200 of them use the Outreach Center; it is bursting on weekends.

Police visit the center weekly to talk to the kids. The arrival of a uniformed female officer elicits squeals and hugs.

“You never used to see that,” says Chris Martinez, who worked on the project. “They used to see [police] as their enemies. Now they’re their heroes.”

Besides talking to the kids at the center, officers escort them there from cramped, run-down high-rise buildings known as “multis” to make sure they are protected. Depending on the neighborhood, kids are not safe enough to cross the street.

The new focus on community policing underscores their positive mission, and seems to be changing perceptions—quickly. Officer Silver Calles has only worked in the neighborhood for four months, but he’s noticed a difference already.

“When I first got here, people would not talk to us, people will not come close to us,” he says, as the kids around him put away their drumsticks and maracas and file noisily into the next room. “It’s the approach that the new team has with the community. It’s not just patrolling, we’re interacting.”

With the new approach, Calles says, officers go to people’s homes and just sit and chat. People have started leaving their doors open.

“It feels good, getting the trust of the people. Getting to interact with people and getting them to see the police through different eyes,” Calles says.

The community policing approach is contributing to lower violent crime. The homicide rate—which had more than doubled between 2006 and 2009—has ratcheted down from 23.4 murders per 100,000 inhabitants to 18 in 2012.

“Our goal is that the population doesn’t look at the police as a suppressing agent anymore,” says Manuel Zambrano, Director of the Integral Security Office of the Ministry of Public Security. “We want the people to…look at the police officer as a person who can help and assist them.”

Domestic violence complaints and drug raids in neighborhoods with community policing initiatives have increased, demonstrating improved trust in authorities according to Zambrano.

His department’s programs, which include home visits by Ministry staff to better understand the problems facing youth in Panama and a gigantic soccer league, reach up to 32,000 youth each year.

Complex changes

Youth are starting to change as much as their neighborhood cops are.

When Dr. Eduardo Barsallo first opened the 24 de Diciembre Outreach Center in the Monterrico neighborhood—one of the poorest in Panama City—he visited local schools and asked teachers to identify students who were failing. These he invited to the center; to get tutoring but also to learn values and gain self-esteem.

At first the kids would steal anything he left out in plain sight. But today, aloof, disengaged and unsuccessful students have transformed into responsible and respectful young adults.

More than 600 of them showed up for a beach cleanup the center organized, and 250 routinely come to play soccer. These kids take pride in the center now. Everyone helps with the cooking and cleaning—boys included.

Things don’t disappear anymore.

“Changing a person’s conduct isn’t easy, it’s very complex,” says Barsallo. “Especially when these kids are beaten, abused at home and in the neighborhood they live in, kids who are hungry and don’t have the affection and love from their family. And they come here…because they find a healthy, clean and friendly place, a place with many resources so they can do homework and share with peers. That is the most important thing: that before this, they were enemies and now they’re friends.”

To Barsallo, the little changes are already noticeable: A boy who volunteers to sweep the floor of the outreach center. A mother who no longer cries as she recounts her son’s behavior at home.

But he has his eye on larger changes. “Take my word for it,” Barsallo says. “If the centers continue, the violence will decrease here in our country.”

Creating a coalition for sustainability

Barsallo, like other youth outreach center directors, is introducing small business activities to the center in an effort to move it toward sustainability.

Thanks to grants from Alcance Positivo, newly-delivered silk-screening equipment in a back room will allow youth to design and sell t-shirts and signs, while another 50 kids learned to barber. Rows of plastic-wrapped stuffed animals and play-sets will entertain toddlers dropped off for low-cost daycare. Gym equipment is on the way to provide healthy lifestyle opportunities—and membership fees.

Although the center has private sector support—the painted plane floating in a sea of soft clouds over the doorway is a tribute to sponsor Copa Airlines—income generation is the way forward. In fact, Alcance Positivo only funded centers that created business plans.

At the close of the program in September 2013, there were 22 Panamanian companies supporting the 23 outreach centers. Dr. Barsallo is set to assume the presidency of a fledgling Outreach Center Association so that all of the establishments can better access the government and ask for ongoing funding.

The United Way of Panama, which supports two centers on its own, has also agreed to step up to coordinate the centers, help them find private sector partners and advocate the government for continued support.

“There had never been in Panama a place where youths could go, without any cost, and have so many opportunities like the ones offered at the Outreach Centers,” says Rina Rodriguez, who coordinates the United Way-sponsored center in a neighborhood called Fondo Unido. “We don’t want to let it fall.”

“To us,” she says, “it is extremely important for youths not to feel like the doors were closed after having such an important program in their lives.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Panama’s “Two Worlds” Come Together for Youth

September 27, 2014

7 min read

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Panama’s “Two Worlds” Come Together for Youth

By Jennifer Brookland

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Panama City—The sleek executive offices of ENSA, one of Panama’s largest electric distribution companies, are a world apart from the seaside city of Colón, where rotting buildings and open sewage are the backdrop for joblessness, poverty and violent crime.

The 100 or so ENSA employees who live in Colón struggle with more than just the hour-long commute. They constantly worry about their safety: about their kids falling into gangs or getting recruited to sell drugs; about someone attacking them for being one of the guys who shuts off the power when the payment is late.

“They have trouble just living there,” says Lorena Fabrega, ENSA’s customer services director. When the company started a volunteer program in Colón a decade ago, she had to bus employees from Panama City. Even staff who lived in Colón did not want to participate.

But evolving ideas about how to run a business is making the way ENSA interacts with communities like Colón an important part of its corporate identity. For it, and many other private sector companies in Panama, giving back and getting involved have become key marketing and recruiting strategies.

“It used to be that what’s good for the company is good for society, and now we see it as the inverse,” Fabrega says. “It’s what’s good for society ends up being good for the company.”

ENSA succeeded in reaching out to young people in poor, crime-affected areas in the company’s service area by partnering with Creative Associates International’s Panama Youth at Risk program, known locally as Alcance Positivo.

Targeting the most-vulnerable neighborhoods

The three-year program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, cultivates violence prevention and positive youth development in Panama, especially through 23 youth outreach centers set up in some of its most vulnerable neighborhoods.

“The Outreach Centers really tie into Creative’s overall violence prevention strategy because they’re an anchor,” says Michael McCabe, who ran the project for the global development company.

In neighborhoods where families lived packed together, where gunshots rang out between rival gangs in the night, “you had this Outreach Center where kids knew they could come. They could suddenly let down their guard. They knew that there were adults who would listen to them that would care about what they’re doing.”

With some of the biggest names in business pledging support for these centers, these partnerships are benefitting both kids and corporations.

Panama is viewed as a success story in Central America, where it lives next to Colombia and down the street from internationally disturbing levels of homicide in Honduras and El Salvador.

Despite its double-digit economic growth, gleaming new skyscrapers and expanding Canal Zone, Panama has endemic pockets of poverty—one third of boys never go past the sixth grade, and a World Bank poverty analysis revealed Panama is one of the most unequal countries in the world.

“We have two Panamas: the rich Panama, and the poor Panama,” says Marcella Tejada, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager for the Morgan and Morgan Group—a major Panamanian law firm, which supports the Outreach Centers.

“Most people, we live parallel lives,” she says. “I had no idea how many young kids had abandoned school and had no dream for the future…They have no plans. How can that happen?”

According to Panama’s former President and Minister of Education Aristides Royo, who is also a senior partner at Morgan and Morgan, the problem stems in part from the country’s low-quality education and the lack of real skills it provides students.

Children leave school because they need to earn money for their families, which are often run by single moms, or because they don’t see the value in education when it comes to finding work.

“They see a future so long and so difficult,” says Royo, who blames poverty and the long stretches of non-constructive time when mothers are at work and kids must entertain and fend for themselves.

When these children are approached by drug dealers hawking a lifestyle that includes a lot less deprivation, it’s an easy sell.

Companies helping kids look forward

Alcance Positivo partnered with private sector companies and NGOs to make it just as easy for young people in Panama to look forward to a meaningful, productive adulthood.

Business like Microsoft, Dell and Copa Airlines provided funding and equipment for the Outreach Centers, while employee volunteers also provided job skills training, facilitated workshops on dating violence, and simply showed up to make it clear to kids that they cared.

“By having them work both as volunteers and providing resources, they built a relationship that we hope will last many years beyond just the initial two-year agreement period,” says McCabe.

ENSA employees, for example, provided lighting that helped turn the Samaria Outreach Center in San Miguelito into an InfoPlaza, a science and technology center supported by the government. They teach young people at the centers how to use energy efficiently and mitigate risks.

Morgan and Morgan brought in a psychologist to train 20 of its employees on running domestic violence prevention workshops at the Outreach Centers.

They worked with 130 kids before Creative’s Alcance Positivo ended in September 2013, but Tejada has no intention of stopping just because the project did. She is already brainstorming how the firm can expand to reach all of the centers.

“We cannot think that the only scope as lawyers will be winning money,” says Royo. “We have to help society because society becomes better…It’s making better the future of Panama; making better citizens, making better boys. In this field I cannot think as a politician. I am thinking as a Panamanian citizen, as a father of three kids and grandfather of seven people. We have to think of our nation.”

“By having them work both as volunteers and providing resources, they built a relationship that we hope will last many years beyond just the initial two-year agreement period,” says McCabe.

Morgan and Morgan brought in a psychologist to train 20 of its employees on running domestic violence prevention workshops at the Outreach Centers.

Good for the company & youth

Corporate social responsibility makes good business sense too: Employees with a sense of well-being are more productive at work and probably more likely to stay with the company—important in a country like Panama where unemployment is very low.

“We have measured the rotation of people that are volunteers versus the ones that are not volunteers and it’s proven that the ones that are volunteers have a better sense of belonging,” Tejada says.

Employees these days don’t just want a paycheck, she points out. They want to give back. And by developing their leadership skills and teamwork through volunteering, they become better employees overall.

Working with Alcance Positivo helped these companies develop potential future employees by providing at-risk students with job preparedness training, computer skills, and increased confidence.

Then there are the major benefits for companies that manage to build good relationships with communities.

“If you have a safer place to work, your employees are going to be motivated, they’re going to work a lot better, and it’s going to be good for the company,” says ENSA’s Fabrega. “If you have a community that can relate to you, that appreciates you, it’s going to be a lot easier to do your job.”

And being visible in the community in such a positive way is some of the best publicity a company can get.

ENSA wants to work with all of the communities in its service area, and the 13 Outreach Centers in Colón, Panama City, San Miguelito and 24 Diciembre are an obvious access point.

By partnering with the centers, ENSA is able to reach precisely those young people it needs to: those in areas rife with delinquency and safety issues, whose families are most likely to use energy without paying and set up illegal connections that not only hurt ENSA’s bottom line but cause dangerous accidents.

“The main objective is to help the youth when they’re at a stage in their lives when you can still make a difference in their habits,” says Fάbrega.

A Profitable Future

The habits youth are forming at the Outreach Centers go well beyond being good energy consumers. They are starting to think of themselves as people who can make a difference in their communities. They are envisioning futures that don’t include drugs and guns but classes and jobs. They are envisioning futures, period.

And so are the companies that got involved with Alcance Positivo. In coordination with the United Way of Panama, ten of the major businesses have created a matching fund and are committed to sustaining the Outreach Centers for another two years beyond the project’s end.

In that time, they’ll be working to help the centers build up their own sustainability.

ENSA, for instance, donated the $16,000 proceeds from their annual walkathon so that the Outreach Center in Colón could buy silk-screening equipment. Besides learning new skills and offering a service to the community, proceeds from the microenterprise will help the center stay open.

“Eventually, hopefully, they won’t need much more sponsorship from companies…but they’ll be able to sustain themselves,” says Fabrega. “And that’s, I think, everybody’s mission when they participate in corporate social responsibility programs.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Panama: Youth find safety & opportunity at outreach centers

September 26, 2014

1 min read

President Obama commends Honduran champion against violence

September 26, 2014

3 min read

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President Obama commends Honduran champion against violence

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]As dignitaries and diplomatic motorcades packed the hotels and clogged the streets of Midtown Manhattan for the U.N. General Assembly, another very important person arrived in New York City for special recognition by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Speaking at the 10th annual Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 23, President Obama praised and pledged to continue supporting the efforts of civil society activists around the world fighting for positive change in their communities and countries.

In a crowd of nearly 1,000 world leaders and activists—including actor Matt Damon, World Bank President Jim Kim and philanthropist Melinda Gates—one person stood out for him: Miriam Canales, a Youth Outreach Center coordinator in San Pedro Sula and Choloma, Honduras, who works with Creative Associates International.

“We stand with humanitarians like Miriam Canales,” said Obama, pointing out the Honduran coordinator. “In communities that are wracked at times by horrific violence, children are so terrified to walk the streets that many begin that dangerous and often deadly march north. And Miriam’s outreach centers give them a safe place to play and grow and learn. And she says her dream is ‘that people in Honduras can walk free’ and that young people will have ‘opportunities in their own country.’ We couldn’t be prouder of you, Miriam, and we stand with you.”

Through more than 190 Youth Outreach Centers across Central America, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and run by local partners, Creative has reached more than 43,000 young people in at-risk communities by addressing the factors that make them vulnerable to violence and giving them an alternative to the gang activity wreaking havoc on their communities.

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In Canales’s country of Honduras, the murder rate is 79 homicides per 100,000 people, the highest in the world outside a war zone. In San Pedro Sula, an industrial city where she works with at-risk youth, the murder rate is even greater. The violence that Canales and the young people she works with in Alianza Joven Honduras (Youth Alliance Honduras) encounter daily is not only tearing communities apart but is also driving many young Hondurans to risk a very dangerous journey alone to the U.S. for a chance at a better life.

Although the auditorium at the Clinton Global Initiative was packed with prominent figures, Obama made it clear that he was there to spotlight and commend change-makers like Canales working relentlessly and, at times, facing grave threats.

“As leaders, we are not the most important people here today,” President Obama. “The most important title is not president or prime minister; the most important title is citizen…. men and women from around the world who devote their lives and, at times, risk their lives to lifting up their communities, and strengthening their nations, and claiming universal rights on behalf of their fellow citizens.”

Canales will return to Honduras to do just that—fight against violence and give the youth of her country an opportunity to grow, learn and become productive citizens who themselves might also one day become agents of positive change.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

“I Read” campaign promotes literacy in Yemen

September 22, 2014

4 min read

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“I Read” campaign promotes literacy in Yemen

By Jillian Slutzker

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]In Yemen, a country where the illiteracy rate is nearly 35 percent and television and radio rather than newspapers are preferred vehicles for information, the Ministry of Education has launched a creative campaign to bolster community support for early grade reading.

The one-month “I Read” campaign, which premiered on Sept. 7 as Yemeni students returned to school, is raising awareness nationwide through public service announcements on 9 TV channels and 14 radio stations about the benefits of literacy for individuals and the country.

“Without education, we will never be able to build our new Yemen,” said Minister of Education Dr. Abdulrazzaq al-Ashwal, who appeared in one of the television announcements. “Active learning can only be achieved if our students master reading and writing skills.”

The campaign’s slogan—“Let’s read because we are a reading nation!”—flashes in Arabic at the end of each announcement.

In its first week, the campaign, which is supported by Creative Associates International’s Community Livelihoods Project, reached more than four million viewers and listeners per day. Last year, a similar media campaign that ran for four months reached 13.2 million Yemenis, roughly half of the population.

Following notable success in its pilot phase, the USAID-funded project’s flagship early grade literacy program, the Yemen Early Grade Reading Approach, expanded from 311 schools in 2013 to 822 schools in 10 governorates by the end of the academic year in May 2014 and reached approximately 236,000 students in first, second and third grades. This school year, the approach will expand to another 206 schools, bringing the total schools participating to 1,028.

The approach uses a phonics-based methodology to improve reading skills by reforming the early grade reading curriculum and strengthening teachers’ capacity to teach reading and writing.

The Ministry of Education has strategically timed this year’s media campaign to align with a further expansion of the Yemen Early Grade Reading Approach to schools in 23 governorates as part of its implementation nationwide.

“This launch coincides with the YEGRA scale-up process, and we want everybody, especially parents, to support this program and make it a success,” says al-Ashwal.

In addition to drumming up community backing for the reading initiative, a core message of the campaign is that mastering reading early paves the road for lifelong achievement.

“Reading is the pathway to success,” said Yemeni Judge Afrah Badwellen, Director of Yemen’s Anti-Corruption Authority, reflecting on her own experience of learning how to read at a young age.

“I Read” seeks to appeal to and inspire a broad swath of the population. The campaign features messages and input from many stakeholders in Yemen’s educational sector and respected community figures including Ministry of Education officials, imams, scholars, poets, journalists and media, private sector leaders, educators, students and parents. “I Read” broadcasts are short and culturally-relevant.

In one video, a young boy sits in a circle with other boys at a mosque, fluently reciting Koranic verse.

“Mohammed, you read so fluently!” exclaims his teacher. “Where did you learn how to read?”

“He has learned it in school through the new early grade reading program introduced in schools,” responds his father.

Another video features Fatma, a second-grader from a remote village in Yemen whose adeptness in reading has not only led to her academic success despite her difficult circumstances, but has also made her a role model for the town and a tutor to her peers.

“I learned how to read in grade one,” Fatma beams. “I learned the letter sounds and blending sounds into words.”

With campaign clips airing strategically on television stations at peak viewership times (morning, noon and evening), “I Read” is generating a national buzz around literacy and the Yemen Early Grade Reading Approach. The increasingly popular Yemen Early Grade Reading Approach Facebook page has more than 3,000 followers from 24 countries. Followers can also access campaign videos from this page and Yemen Early Grade Reading Approach YouTube site.

Playing an advisory role to the Ministry of Education in strategy and implementation, Creative has a wealth of prior experience leading public awareness media campaigns globally including in Afghanistan, Haiti, Nicaragua, Serbia and Montenegro, the West Bank and Libya. From voter mobilization to HIV/AIDS education to civic engagement in governance, Creative has supported local organizations and governments in developing and deploying effective messaging on a large-scale basis,

Following a highly successful campaign last year, which was primarily led by Creative, the Ministry of Education is spearheading “I Read” this year as part of a concerted effort to achieve long-term sustainability of the Yemen Early Grade Reading Approach under the ministry.

For their part, other ministries involved in the campaign are also thinking forward, placing literacy at the center of Yemen’s growth.

“Let’s teach our children and grandchildren to love reading,” says Nasr Taha Mustafa, Minster of Media. “Reading is food for thought and refinement for the soul and the key to development.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/12″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=”sidebar-primary”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

It’s time to redefine manhood and stop violence in families and communities

September 19, 2014

4 min read

Youth in Panama in Creative’s youth-at-risk project advocate nonviolence in their communities. Photo by Michael McCabe.

I am always fascinated at how cultural change occurs, sometimes more slowly than we hope (civil rights), and sometimes more quickly than we expect (recent advances in the acceptance of same sex marriage).

There are also usually key defining moments in the media that capture the struggle of many in the story of one. Such is the case recently around the willingness to take intra-familial violence from being a private issue for the family to being a topic of open public debate and, in many corners, outrage.

In our age of instant social media, two of the National Football League’s premier stars were revealed using violence, one knocking out his fiancé on video, and the other with a photo showing the effects of whipping his 4-year-old with a switch to supposedly discipline his child out of love like his parents had done to him. These two public images released a tide of debate about what is acceptable and unacceptable in terms of physical violence within the family and concepts of manhood in this day and age.

On the domestic violence front, calls to the U.S. National Domestic Violence Prevention Hotline soared 84 percent the week that the Ray Rice video was released. National and international media debated why men (and occasionally women) batter, why the partner stays and what can be done to help.

Major league sports franchises and federations started discussing what length of suspension should be mandated if a player is found to have beaten his wife or child. The fact that an industry would impose its own sanctions, on top of a legal system that often fails victims of intra-familial family violence, is indeed a game-changer that could set precedents nationally and internationally.

On the child abuse front, commentators and child care specialists highlighted the fact that acceptance of corporal punishment (hitting a child with an object or hand) is still practiced by 75 percent of Americans generally, and 89 percent of African Americans. It is hardly the exception but rather a norm that has been passed down through generations, despite significant research that show its long-term, negative psychological effects on the child and its propensity to actually increase children and youth’s violent behavior.

The rates of corporal punishment in the U.S. exceed that in many other countries. One reason given by some analysts is the fact that every country other than the U.S. and Somalia signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 which, among other things, protects children against violence including corporal punishment, and 38 countries have laws prohibiting such punishment.

All this violence has a cumulative impact on young people. While working on gang and youth violence issues in Panama and Central America, I always felt we had to “look upstream” for where these problems of violence were really coming from. The kids would often tell of the beatings that they or their mother endured by the “man of the house” or of abuse by their mother. Likewise, while visiting a project in a school in the Caribbean, the principal told how he and other teachers maintained discipline with a two-inch wide belt.

The research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) shows that four or more of these experiences, such as viewing or being the victim of intra-familial violence or being sexually abused, result in a multitude of health and social problems in the short- and long-term. Additionally, in the U.S., 80 percent of incarcerated prisoners report having grown up in violent households.

In Panama, Creative’s youth at-risk project decided to go “upstream”, and we trained youth to talk to other youth about intra-familial and dating violence to try to break the cycle. The youth and the adult allies were thirsting for techniques to improve communication, foster healthy relationships and learn nonviolent alternatives to how “they had learned discipline from their parents”. Many young men also struggled with concepts of what it was to be a man in terms of using force to establish respect.

If we want to truly make a dent on issues of violence in society in general, we need to be willing to go publically “upstream” to examine, challenge and ultimately replace old concepts of manhood and discipline based on histories of violence with new proven effective ways of communication, healthy relationships and positive discipline.

The eyes of many are on this important topic for the moment. It is up to us all to make a public statement rejecting violence in or outside the household, and to share training in new tools for communication, parenting and healthier concepts of masculinity.

Michael McCabe is an expert in training and capacity development at Creative Associates International.