Milflores Center in Guatemala

The origins of the project

The MilFlores Center was born from the need to respond, with appropriate instruments and forces, to a situation of unsustainable and dramatic poverty in a particular area of Guatemala: Petén, a department located in the north of the country.

In 26 years of presence in Central America, one of our main objectives has been to meet the most vulnerable minors: declared abandoned by judges, victims of violence and abuse, including family members or in situation of extreme poverty.

The description of the Centre

With the construction of the MilFlores reception center, completed at the end of November 2012, we welcomed about 100 boys and girls to whom we offered a familar environment in which to grow up healthy, safe and where they can also be accompanied in the psychological elaboration of the serious traumas suffered.

The Center is characterized by a large central structure for common activities (refectory and performance of tasks) and a common play and socialization space (Pinocho room).

Over the years the children have been divided into small family groups, assisted by the constant presence of an educator / mother who has followed them in a daily life made of study and socialization activities such as sports and games.

The Centre provided the following:

school attendance, including the cost of tuition fees, purchase of books and teaching materials;
recreational and educational activities (small playground), with a series of psycho-pedagogical interventions to promote creativity, socialization and affectivity among children, together with moments aimed at the care and education of personal hygiene;
sports activities (basketball court);
psychological support and medical-health assistance.

The MilFlores Center can accommodate up to 32 children and adolescents.

The educators follow the children to offer them a family environment and continuous, patient and affective support.

In accordance with international guidelines aimed, where possible, at reintegration into family groups of origin, The Guatemalan legislation established that the MilFlores Center only temporarily accommodates children in a situation of social risk and only if the family is unable to provide them with the necessary protection. In this new scenario we had to see that the conditions for doing a sufficiently long educational and psychological support job, as these cases would have required, had disappeared. It was therefore considered appropriate to take another path to make our commitment more profitable for this vulnerable segment of the population.

For over a year the MilFlores Center has been hosting teenagers from remote villages and very poor and numerous families who reside in the Petén area and who are reported to us. The guest children have the opportunity to access the minimum levels of school education, which otherwise would be precluded to them, and participate in training and recreational activities.

The Finca of the MilFlores Center

To ensure food sustainability at the Center, we immediately started working on the land surrounding a finca (agricultural production farm). Plane and banana trees, corn, ayote and beans were planted, according to the traditional Milpa system, and animals were bought for breeding (hens, cows). For the future we expect to develop productivity through the extension and optimization of areas used for cultivation and vegetable gardens and the purchase of additional livestock.

A new project is being approved whose main objective is to help reduce poverty and malnutrition rates in the rural and indigenous areas of Petén, through training of the local farmers and a sustainable food production, useful to overcome the needs of families and guests of the MilFlores Center.

Milflores Center in Guatemala

Funders

Milflores Center in Guatemala

BECOME A VOLUNTEER