Archive for ‘Community’

Being Helpful: Relief, Rehabilitation, or Development

May 14, 2020

Our response to poverty and how we carryout poverty alleviation plans matters. We have a desire to help in a productive way, and not enable or make worse someone’s situation in the long-run. How can we do this?

First, it helps to determine what type of poverty alleviation effort is appropriate: relief, rehabilitation, or development. This classification was pioneered in the best-selling book, When Helping Hurts.

Relief is characterized by an urgent need that people are incapable of fulfilling themselves typically due to a one-time crisis (think COVID-19 sickness or food shortage).
Rehabilitation occurs when people have recovered their bearings and can start to actively be part of their own solution (think active job searching after unexpected job loss). This continues until they return to pre-crisis conditions.
Development describes the growth that someone has above and beyond their pre-crisis state (think moving into a nicer house due to years of dedicated job growth or being able to provide education opportunities to their children that were unattainable for themselves). Development can take years to materialize and even span generations in the same family.

Another key distinction between these poverty alleviation strategies is that relief is typically done to someone and rehabilitation and development are done with someone (learn more from The Chalmers Center).

Within the current context of COVID-19 in Tijuana, Doxa’s response has been a mixture of relief and rehabilitation. Relief efforts have included food distribution to community households, special emergency funding to orphanages, and the provision of face masks. The procurement process for the food and face masks has been rehabilitation as we source these items locally. Partnering with a local farmer, produce vendor, and larger grocery stores to give them all needed business. Repurposing our house curtain maker, Luis, to instead make hundreds of face masks during this time. Additionally, when legally allowed to resume house building, Doxa will be employing local people to build houses. Another example of rehabilitation efforts.

Even without the challenging times of COVID-19, it can be hard to accurately respond to poverty. For some it evokes an emotional and spiritual reaction and for others an alarming panic and urgency to just do something. If we’re not careful, however, the wrong application can lead to long-term harm. As the situation around COVID-19 further develops and gradually comes to an end, there will be another difficult decision-point on the horizon. When to stop relief efforts before they start to do harm?

How do kids end up in a Tijuana orphanage? Is “orphanage” even the correct term?

May 14, 2020

While volunteering in Tijuana, groups typically stay at one of Doxa’s partner orphanages. Either Casa Hogar de los Niños or Casa Hogar Unidos por Siempre. The casa hogar prefix is part of their full name and translates to the word orphanage. The literal translation, however, is house home. Neither of these translations do justice to the work that these organizations actually do.

Kids that are at a casa hogar typically come from one of four backgrounds:

Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF)
- This is a government entity with offices in Tijuana that work with children, elderly, and vulnerable populations. One of their specific functions is to regulate orphanages and other organizations that care for children. They are also legally responsible for minors that are removed from their families or need a temporary place to live. The ultimate goal of DIF is working towards the well-being and strengthening of families, which will result in their self-sufficiency.
- DIF uses the orphanages throughout Tijuana as places to house kids when the courts determine that their parents are not fit to care for them. Since the ultimate goal of DIF is to reunite families and work to improve them, DIF kids typically do not spend more than 1-2 years maximum in an orphanage setting.
- In rare cases where kids truly have no family or fit adult to care for them, DIF works to secure a permanent placement in a casa hogar.
Volunteer kids
- Oftentimes kids have a parent, relative, or someone else who is legally responsible for their wellbeing. This person loves them and wants to care for them, but doesn’t always have the necessary income to do so. In these instances, the responsible adult will directly approach a casa hogar and reach an agreement on what child care looks like.
- In these situations, child care typically looks like the kids living at the casa hogar from Monday-Friday and then returning back home on the weekends. It is also common for the responsible adult to pay a small fee to the orphanage (in the range of $5-15 per week).
Kids of orphanage workers
- It takes various employees to properly run an orphanage and some live on-site. It is common for the employees who live on-site to also have their kids be part of orphanage life and essentially grow up there.
Daily childcare
- Similar to volunteer kids, these are children whose responsible adult has directly approached an orphanage and worked out a childcare agreement. This is particularly common among single parents who work long hours and have no one else to help with childcare. School is typically half-days in Mexico, so parents who work full-days can rely on a casa hogar to fill in the gaps.
- In this arrangement, the responsible adult drops off their child in the early morning and picks them back up at night time after work. The child does not sleep in the casa hogar. Just as with volunteer kids, this type of arrangement is typically accompanied by a small weekly or daily payment from the responsible adult to the orphanage.

The director of the orphanage has the ultimate say over which kids get admitted and which do not. They also have the ability to create a mix of kids from these four sources, according to what they prefer.

With varying backgrounds and the ultimate goal of family reunification and self-sufficiency, this explains why kids are in orphanages for unpredictable lengths of time. Some just weeks and others for years. While it is always nice to see the same child from year to year on your house building trip, just because they are no longer at the orphanage doesn’t mean that anything negative has occurred. They are almost certainly reunified with their family or responsible adult. With a more accurate understanding of how kids would end up in a casa hogar, the term orphanage doesn’t really make sense. It makes one assume that none of these kids have family, which is simply not true. An effective casa hogar meets families where they are at with childcare needs and does so on a temporary basis, until the responsible adult can resume their rightful childcare duties. In fact, the services of a casa hogar are typically a last resort, employed when no other suitable or safe solutions exist. Perhaps a more accurate name for these organizations would simply be a children’s home?

Grupo Yelitza – Doxa’s Dance Club

May 14, 2020

Doxa’s dance group is called Yelitza, which means “door to the sky” in the native Mexican language Nahuatl. Juan Sabino started Yelitza in 2016, along with the motto “dance rescues youth.” Its mission is to reach more youth in order to wake up their love of dance and create a link with all audiences.

Sabino shares that “folklore dance is considered a Mexican tradition and is central to culture. We should pass this onto our youth and children. Unfortunately, in the border region, this type of activity is not widely considered important, but Yelitza creates an atmosphere where youth can fall in love with these cultural traditions. Additionally, activities like this keep youth busy and away from poor influences and other temptations that might otherwise fill their time.”

Sabino started to learn the art of folklore dance in 2003, while in elementary school. After a couple years he joined the dance group Ballet Folklórico Ixchel and has been with them for over 15 years. Participating in countless events and shows, Sabino had the motivation to pass the art of dance onto a younger generation. He says that “starting and growing Grupo Yelitza has taught me the value of hard work and the effort that Doxa puts behind the community through cheerful education to kids who need it the most.” He takes delight in serving these kids and helping them to grow culturally through dance. Grupo Yelitza gladly performs at a wide variety of gatherings such as festivals, dance shows, religious assemblies, rallies, and municipal events.

Development of Pedregal Neighborhood

March 11, 2020

Colonia Pedregal de Santa Julia is where Doxa first started building houses about 30 years ago. After decades of development and more than 2000 houses built in and around Pedregal, it barely resembles what it once was. Back then there were many notable differences: no paved streets, no street lights, sporadic electricity service and running water, no sewer system, no telephone or Internet service, lots of open space and undeveloped land, and schools were often canceled for just a light rain (or because the clouds looked like rain!). Land values have gone from the hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.

In 2020, Pedregal is a well-equipped neighborhood in every sense of the word, like a small suburb a short distance away from downtown Tijuana. Pedregal now enjoys: pavement in the vast majority of streets with sidewalk space, all major utility services (electric, water, sewer, telephone, and Internet), street lights that illuminate the neighborhood, almost no more vacant land for new housing development, and schools that operate rain or shine. Take a look at some pictures that show the development of Pedregal over the years. See if you can spot any of the brightly colored Doxa houses.

Not only does Pedregal look different, but families are more established. They have more history there and household incomes have risen overall. For the first time, parents are experiencing what it’s like to have some disposable income above and beyond the immediate needs of their families. All of this development is something to be celebrated!

At the same time, though, development like this throughout communities can mean that the needs are changing. Housing and infrastructure used to be the primary need in Pedregal. Now, the primary needs revolve around education and community.

Doxa’s education program equips children relationally and materially to succeed in school. This methodical approach means that a Doxa staff member gets to intimately know the needs of a specific child and family. Then, journey along with them and learn what is really needed for success. While this approach may be more time intensive, it yields amazing results. As long as the student is willing to put in the work, there is nothing that Doxa won’t do to help them succeed.

Doxa’s community events, gatherings, and programs span a wider breadth of offerings which have included: parenting workshops, dance classes, cooking classes, neighborhood fundraisers, Christmas parties, Mother’s Day celebrations, counseling sessions, community fairs, and summer camp.

While these newer education and community needs are exciting, it is also one of Doxa’s values to continue partnership and support of local organizations like Hogar de los Niños. Especially, as they have been an integral part of the Pedregal community since the 1970s.

Doxa looks forward to sharing more about what the vision for education and community looks like in Pedregal!

Meet Teresa

March 11, 2020

Teresa and Ubaldo come from Puebla and have been married for 14 years. Like most adults in Tijuana, they ventured here for better job opportunities. Teresa also says that “living with my mother-in-law” in Puebla helped guide their decision-making (ha!). Tijuana is a popular destination as it’s known as a major economic hub and manufacturing city throughout Mexico.

Teresa and Ubaldo have three children and live in the Eastern TJ neighborhood of Rojo Gomez. They were successful in buying a small piece of land, but were unable to fund the building of a house. Teresa remembers how she first encountered Doxa’s house building: “one day I saw a group building a house near my land and I also saw Maria [Unidos por Siempre founder] so I decided to investigate how it all worked, and thanks be to God she told me she could help… all I needed to do was apply and do some community service at the orphanage.”

After Teresa’s 120 hours of community service, a group from Oak Brook, IL came to build in August 2019. Ubaldo vividly remembers all the work that he did to prepare their piece of land for the house. He excavated, by hand, about 9 square yards of compacted dirt and rock. Talk about commitment!

At this point in the house building process, families typically start to make their new house into a home. What makes Teresa’s story unique is that, apart from moving into her family’s new house, she continued to serve at Unidos por Siempre. She is a gifted cook and Maria recognized this during her regular volunteer hours. Teresa has now joined the Unidos por Siempre staff as a cook. She is a great fit for the culture and mission of Unidos por Siempre, not to mention she live just right up the street.

Under different circumstances, Teresa and Maria might not have met and discovered their natural synergy. What an extraordinary example of a win-win-win for everyone involved!