Whole Child’s work is progressing in Nicaragua. The primary focus for spring and summer is on training the administrators and caregivers at four new institutions; continuing and broadening our impact at the pilot orphanage; and building our Managua-based team.

For the past two months our training team has consisted of trainer Marta Periera and regional program manager Gabriela Serrano, both of whom have just returned from training at Pikler Institute in Budapest, Hungary. Marta was joined at Pikler by Arlae Gomez, recently hired to fill the second training position in Nicaragua. Arlae is due to arrive in Managua shortly, where she will implement technical support in our partner orphanages, mentor local apprentice trainers as they come aboard, and help lead training sessions.

The year’s second training sessions took place over three days late last month. As always, the training sessions featured direct learning, workshops, and discussion, described in greater detail below. This learning will be continuously reinforced at all five participating institutions through the ongoing presence of Whole Child’s trainers.

The exercises and topics in Session II engaged the participants with several highlights:

•••> A hand-washing exercise demonstrated the importance of appropriate and predictable routines for children. Participating caregivers took part in a role-reversal component that provided a jarring illustration of the emotional impact of a day-to-day routine when it is conducted abruptly and carelessly.

•••> An open discussion of the differences between between maternal and professional care drew the caregivers into an intensive exploration of the potential impact of their work if conducted effectively. Gabriela Serrano, the regional program director, was able to share some of the research conducted by our partners at the Pikler Institute, who have been able to connect positive outcomes in adulthood to the caregiving practices they have been refining for the past 60 years.

•••> The team introduced a language/communication focus into this training session to help with the problem caregivers encounter in the process of learning to talk to children who are too young to respond verbally. To illustrate the need for this central principle of our work, visual aids demonstrated the active acquisition of language and the neurological activity of young children, even before birth, as they learn to listen to and process audio cues. With this new information fresh in their minds, the participants took turns with dolls, practicing talking to the children while changing their diapers.

The training sessions tend to evoke intense, often surprisingly personal, reactions and revelations from the participants. In one activity, the trainers instructed the caregivers to think of someone from childhood who left a positive mark in their lives. After a few minutes of quiet time, one by one the participants shared stories about their mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and other relatives who helped make them who they were.

One young orphanage caregiver contributed a more illustrative testimony than we could have wished for. As if to provide everyone in the room with a reason to continue their work, she described the director from the orphanage in which she spent her childhood. With tenderness usually reserved for parents and close family members, she described the love and affection she received from her orphanage’s chief administrator who, though no longer living in Nicaragua, would remain in her heart forever.

The story galvanized the room, infusing in the participants and their reactions a renewed desire to make a difference in the children’s lives, and to create the kind of memories that had been shared by their colleague.

Thanks to Gabriela Serrano for her assistance with these posts.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.