El Barrilete visit

Today we visit El Barrilete, an after-school project for poor children in Guadalupe, León. These children often come from families with drug or alcoholic problems, or have parents in prostitution or working on the streets, and for this reason can not help them with their homework after school. In many cases their parents have left the country to work in Costa Rica or other places, and the children are left with their grandmother or other relatives. The children come to Barrilete to eat lunch, learn, play and to get help with their school assignments.

However, lately, because of increasing problems in their homes, many children are sleeping in Barrilete also. This has increased the costs of running the project, as they have had to buy beds, sheets, pillows etc. and also offer breakfast and dinner to the children, in addition to the lunch that was already offered to them. This has also led to that  the project manager, Maria, has to live at the project to take care of the children. There are about 10-18 children sleeping in Barrilete every night.

The Mayagna Children's Fund, which is just one of the sources of funding for the project, has been supporting El Barrilete for two years now and it will be interesting to see how the project has changed since the last visit in 2012.