LET'S BUILD THE FUTURE TOGETHER

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.