Children and youth for peace - Carrefour Foundation

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Argentina

Argentina : A programme of social reintegration for marginalized children

A vocational integration programme, an educational and vocational training centre

Two day centres adapted to the needs of street children and adolescents. Since 1995, the village of niños para la paz (“children for peace”) has offered street children a place where they can come in out of the elements. Since it opened, the activities of the centre have multiplied.

Argentina’s national council for adolescents and the family donated a 50-hectare plot of land on the outskirts of Buenos Aires to the association to help it offer more space to the children and adolescents who frequent it. The Village of Niños para la Paz occupies a 10-hectare site and gives assistance to 167 street children. The centre has a kitchen and canteen and operates five organic production workshops (activities include cheesemaking, poultry, rabbits, honey, aromatic herbs, vegetable garden), seven craft/industry workshops (carpentry, leather goods, plumbing, electricity, silk screen printing, baking, food preserving and sheet metal work), four general education workshops (reading, writing, arithmetic, IT and physical education) and five optional subject workshops (literature, art, music, video and theatre). The Village of Jovenes para la Paz (“youth for peace”) occupies a 50-hectare site and currently offers assistance to 70 adolescents, although it has capacity for 300. Both centres are gradually moving towards financial autonomy thanks to the local sale of the goods from their workshops (honey, cheese, rabbits, breeders, crafts products etc.), which pays for the young people’s meals.