Casas de Alegria 

Description
The Casas de la Alegría are care centers for children between 0 and 12 years old, children of coffee pickers, temporary collaborators on farms.

Description:

The Casas de la Alegría-Jamigara ajudö jüe are care centers for boys and girls, children of coffee pickers, who during the grain harvest season, move to and live within the farms.
In this way the Houses of Joy become a kind of nursery.

Origin

The Casas de la Alegría have their origin in the Coto Brus canton, as a coffee municipality, historically it has had a massive arrival of Ngäbe and Buglé indigenous people who work on the farms during the harvest but who, in this temporary migratory movement, travel with part of your family group among which are children.

After years of observing and intervening in different ways with the coffee growers to improve the conditions of their workers, it was possible to identify the need to provide conditions of protection and care for minors, this with the intention of asserting their Rights, compliance in the best interests of the child and to encourage and ensure the elimination of child labor.

The aforementioned gives rise to the possibility that as an effect of the care centers, adequate nutrition is promoted, an informal education where there are early stimulation options for the youngest and the development of group and educational activities promoting the transmission of their culture and strengthening the bond with its traditions.

All this initiative was raised between the government institutions in charge of the areas that are involved in these Houses, such as the Health Area of ​​the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS), the Ministry of Health, the CEN CINAI, Ministry Public Education and from the aspect of financing the family welfare subsidy is the Mixed Institute of Social Aid (IMAS).

Similarly, UNICEF was the promoter of the project from the Joint Program to Improve the Human Security of Ngäbe and Buglé Temporary Migrants in Costa Rica and Panama (PCSH). Which contributed the professional and economic resources for the elaboration of the materials and the care proposal from a cultural relevance perspective in the case of the indigenous people.

Population served

All children from 0 to 12 years old.

Executing agency

From the project approach, the PCSH sought to make it a public-private initiative, so that it could function efficiently and sustainably, so an entity was needed that had the facility to channel and manage the resources it received from the public sector. and private for the Houses to work.

It was in this way that Coope Sabalito R.L. (Coffee Growers Cooperative) assumed responsibility and coordinates the hiring, payments and disbursements required to have the right staff, make food purchases and any other need that arises during the harvest season.

Number of Houses of Joy

Currently 16 farms have 17 Casas de la Alegría.

Operation of the Houses

The Casas de la Alegría in Coto Brus open from September and remain in operation until December or January of each year.

The opening is determined by the maturation of the coffee, which is when the arrival of the natives and any harvesting worker begins.

From that moment on, the Cooperative began the procedures before IMAS to generate the disbursements for the care of these children and thus be able to provide the service to the children of the collectors.

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