LET'S BUILD THE FUTURE TOGETHER

According to data released by the monitoring of schools in pandemic, attendance in kindergarten education establishments was below 80 percent during the first semester of 2022.

In this, ignorance is key.

Absenteeism at this stage of life is often a predictor of learning problems in higher grades and even school exclusion in the future. An authority in the field said that early education is the true higher education, the one where we must put all our efforts, because this is the stage in which children absorb knowledge with a natural ease. Their brain is a sponge that needs to be stimulated. It is at this stage of development that the playing field of opportunities is really leveled. Where a poor child, well stimulated, has no difference with a child from a high socioeconomic stratum.

A study conducted by the Choshuenco and Protectora de la Infancia foundations reveals that the impact on the development of children due to the closure of kindergartens and preschools is evidenced in a lower development of language and socio-emotional skills.

In our kindergartens and nurseries, we listen to concerned mothers because their young children wake up in the middle of the night, at two or three in the morning. And we ask them to tell us about their routine: at 11 p.m., the child fell asleep with the TV on, or with moms breastfeeding with the cell phone on until late. In the past, children who arrived at the nursery acquired their routines and graduated from high school with those cycles learned. On the other hand, when they are at home, in environments altered by the health, economic and social crisis, the lag in language, eating habits and health is noticeable. In everything.

We urgently need to take action to address these developmental losses, especially for children currently living in poverty and vulnerability; they are the ones who lose the most by not attending early education. If between March and June 2019, there were 633,414 students with serious non-attendance, this year they increased to 1,254,253 students, including pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, almost doubling. In other words, four out of every 10 students in the system do not attend kindergarten or school.

And this will undoubtedly have repercussions in their future lives. If we don't all do something now, tomorrow will be too late.  

Hogar de Cristo's Sol Naciente kindergarten, located in Lo Espejo, receives a little more than fifty children between the ages of two and four. It is one of the few establishments of its category in an area characterized by high social vulnerability.

"For him this is an opportunity to grow, to have contact with more children his age and to learn. I work and before he came to the kindergarten, it was difficult for me to find someone to see him," says Nicole, a 33-year-old mother who dreams of a better future for her son Alejandro, who is almost three years old.

He is one of the 52 children who attend Hogar de Cristo's Sol Naciente kindergarten, located in Lo Espejo, in the Las Turbinas neighborhood. Through the Montessori educational model, the educators work for the integral development of their young pupils; that they are able to make decisions and learn to develop their will. And as the saying goes, "full belly, happy heart", the children are even happier when they receive their snacks and lunches prepared by a team of nutritionists and food handlers.

The "particularity" of Hogar de Cristo's gardens is that they are where no one else is, in areas of high risk and social vulnerability, where most families have multiple needs, not only economic, but also access to services such as health, housing, among others. And for some time now, there has been another worrying factor. "We also find parents who are involved in drug trafficking, so it is an issue that the kindergartens manage, because it is not unrelated to what happens to children. It is a context that is sometimes violent, with a lot of scarcity, negligence derived from drug use, so we go far beyond what happens in the classroom," says Claudia Fasani, head of early education at Hogar de Cristo.

Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to live in poverty as adults, to be exposed to violent or polluted environments, to develop infectious, chronic, and mental illnesses, and are less likely to complete their formal education; that is why our work in early education is vital to break the cycle of poverty.