Centurion Company Reviews Fight with Violence and Drug Cartels

Centurion Company Reviews - In many impoverished communities, the problem of violence poses as serious if not more serious a threat as poverty. The problems of violence range from petty crimes to organized crime and drug cartels where simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time can mean death by crossfire. In Guadalajara's poor neighborhoods, for example, Mexico's drug cartel stores its safe houses there and often the surrounding areas are racked with violence. Dead bodies and murder victims are a common occurrence in such streets.While many children fear the cartel, it's equally true that some of the older ones admire them and there are even children, ages 12 - 17, working as lookouts or "hawks."

     

To pull such children from the traps of violence and lead them to a better life, Children International offers many positive initiatives through programs such as Youth Health Corps, Into Employment, and Game On! Youth Sports. In particular, the Game On! program encourages children to develop positive life skills such as how to work in a team, set goals, and resolve conflicts through organized sports. 

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Children International's community providing educational services and even job training

Often financial success is not a question of talent or even hard work but a question of opportunity. Warren Buffet acknowledged as much when he said "Stick me in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru and we'll see how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil." Without the proper social capital and economic infrastructure in place, in some places, no matter how hard you worked you might still be in poverty. In Guatemala's red zones, for example, where over 50% of the population lives in poverty and gangs dominate the area such that even the police are afraid to enter, youth often have difficulty escaping the crutches of poverty. 

Fortunately, Children International's community center is one of the safe havens for children, providing educational services and even job training. For teenagers born into the red zones like Fernando Reyes who are often stigmatized as gang hoodlums, such job training is monumental. Thanks to such training, Fernando now oversees the distribution and stocking of a hardware store all over the city and can help support his seven brothers and sisters.

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In Mexico, over half of the population lives in poverty and over 7% of children under the age of 5 are malnourished. To combat this Children International has partnered with a local restaurant association and created a campaign to bolster feeding programs there. In participating restaurants, donation cards encouraged restaurant patrons to donate to CI's nutrition program with the purpose of getting more than 1,500 malnourished children back to healthy weights. Such feeding programs not only provide children nutritional supplements but also monitor their progress and offer workshops that teach parents about nutrition.

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Children International's Youth Council

Children International's Youth Council gives sponsored youth the opportunity to choose projects to others and embodies the child sponsorship's philosophy of helping children help themselves and others. Each Youth Council receives an annual grant, known as the Youth Empowerment Fund. The fund gives youth a chance to improve their communities by increasing access to job training and basic necessities like clean water. 

One particularly impressive example can be found in a village in Guatemala, where children had to cross a five kilometer trek to the nearest school. This five kilometer journey was divided into two phases: first, a three kilometer hike along a lonely road surrounded by mountains where there were mudslides and children walking alone would sometimes be stolen; second, a two kilometer walk along the shoulder of a curvy highway where speeding cars could strike at any second. 

To avoid this danger, parents often kept their children out of school until they were 8 or 9, putting them at a huge academic disadvantage. In response, the Guatemala Youth Council spent their Youth Empowerment Fund to build two classrooms closer to the teacher and worked with the Education Ministry to hire teachers. Today, the Viejo Paxixil School serves 135 students from preschool through Grade 6.

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