We're in Mexico

We arrived in Mexico three weeks ago. We have been busy settling into to our new city, Puebla, and meeting all the staff and children at Juconi Mexico.

We will be here for 8 weeks, running a pilot CMAP art project with 3 different groups of children.

Puebla is a beautiful place 2 hrs south of Mexico City, we are at an altitude of 2160m and the city is surrounded by volcanoes and mountains (which we can see from our house).

We were taken aback by the number of differences between Ecuador & Mexico and the different Juconi offices;
- For a start, Mexican Spanish is completely different and we now have to learn a whole new list of vocabulary.
- It gets COLD here! We are wearing jumpers and scarves. (Sorry, we haven’t had snow though)
- The food is very different. There’s less rice and more tacos, which we have already become addicted to.
- We don’t stand out like a sore thumb, as there are plenty of ‘gringos’ in town.

As for the Juconi office, it has been running for around 7 years longer than in Ecuador. It is a much larger organisation and we are working with three of the different sections and offices. These sections are Casa Juconi, Centro Juconi & TRACA.

Casa Juconi is a residential home for 24 boys previously living on the streets. Most of the boys have left their homes because of abusive situations. While the boys are staying in the Casa, Juconi continues to work with them and their families. Some go to school and participate in work internships. We are working with a group of 9 boys aged between 10 – 14 yrs; some of them attend school in the mornings.

Centro Juconi is a day centre next to the central market in Puebla. The children come from market-working families. They attend a couple of sessions a week, providing them with a safe environment to learn and play in. Centro Juconi works with children from 6 months – 14yrs old. This is our largest group with 16 children aged 6 – 8yr olds.

The TRACA (trabajador niño calle) programme works with street-working children (similar to Ecuador). They work with the families and in the community. We will be meeting at one of the central Juconi offices (Volcanes) for the workshops where we will be working with a mixed group of 9 – 12yr olds.

For more information about Juconi Mexico please visit:
www.juconi.org.mx/english