At Risk Children Dance for Social Change

On the 24^th of March, Fundación Calicanto’s Enlaces program hosted a Puberty and Adolescence Workshop for the parents of our child dancers. 18 of 21 parents attended. This might not seem like such a significant figure, but it wouldn’t have been impossible to gather these many parents together in one place when we started this social initiative five years ago. Those who follow Enlaces closely know that our program deals primarily with prevention for at-risk children. We offer them a safe space in which to practice dance as well as partake in other artistic avenues that their young minds would otherwise not prioritize. We also provide them with supplementary schoolwork aid and counseling and we follow through with their respective academic institutions in order to ensure their continued mental development.

And yet all this can be undone if they leave the Foundation and arrive at a home with parents who prioritize other issues over their children’s continued education. For this reason, our outreach must be larger. If we are to influence the community in a positive way, we must obviously focus on its future contributing members. But we must also focus on their families. The increased interest in their children’s extracurricular activities is proof that our web of influence is growing. Now, when an Enlaces child returns home after a valuable afternoon of learning and dancing, they are greeted by parents that are perhaps a bit more interested in their endeavors. Instead of questions like “Why do you waste all that time at the dancing school?” they might hear something along the lines of “What did you learn today?”

Our older students are benefitting directly from the aforementioned workshop and from our new focus on adolescence. They are establishing balanced relationships with their parents, relationships in which both parties understand the importance of freedom but also the necessity for boundaries. Since this is such an important and difficult period for children, we want to avoid an excessive separation between the parental unit and the child. Just because they might seem like they want to distance themselves, these children (like all children) need a parent emotionally present to guide them through a scary but exciting new phase of their lives.

Our dancing lessons, study aid, psychological support, therapy sessions, and values don’t stay within the four walls of our Enlaces classroom. They can’t. Our beneficiaries include everyone linked to the children we are helping shape into adults. When we give them the tools to better their own circumstances, we must also give them the blueprints to rebuild connections between themselves, their families, and their communities that may have been lost along the way. And in some cases, we must teach them how to build bridges that might not have existed at all.