They range from 0 to 4 years of age. Nuestro Hogar was created to care for children during early childhood and acknowledges the fact that, in certain cases, children can stay with us until the age of four.
2) There are many institutions that are responsible for orphaned, abandoned, or distressed children. What makes AMI different?
Our work is guided by the following principles: I. To care for people without biases, conditionings, or pressures. II. To favor the child’s satisfaction of sensory, motor, and affective needs. III. To maintain a relaxed, equipped environment for the recovery of the health and joy of living of the child.
Caring for children is not a matter of patience or simply putting up with them; running out of patience can easily lead to abuse. Knowing and understanding their expressions of well-being, anguish, sadness, and pain mechanisms in the body guide us in our work. This is not charity work. It is a job that struggles for the dignity of both the child and the family. One of our goals is to reintegrate the child into his family and society. This vision seems essential to promote both the process of identity construction in the child and the social inclusion and recognition of each member of their family as legitimate citizens. We have done long-term monitoring with families who have taken back their children. Adults who have their children stay in institutions are people with many personal, social difficulties. Some people need professional, respectful support for some time, so that they could make important decisions and work toward restructuring their lives. This is feasible if the time that each person needs is respected.
3) Is the way children are treated due to the fact that they are "different", or it is because they deserve special treatment for having faced harsher conditions than other children?
Every child deserves to be treated with respect, to have their feelings, expressions, and needs considered, and to be cared for and accepted in a suitable environment that meets their sensory, motor needs. This is what we offer children who come to Nuestro Hogar.
4) Do children need to recover first to be treated "normally" later?
Yes. A child who has been abandoned and/or mistreated is a sick and very sad child. Their recovery is only possible in an environment where they feel that they are loved and taken into account in a respectful way and where they have the opportunity to discover how great and special this environment really is. This is a safe, understanding, tender environment where they learn to trust themselves and become aware of their difficulties and sorrows, where they find a harmonious coexistence, and where they discover their abilities to make sound decisions in their lives. At Nuestro Hogar, we have observed with every child who returns to their family that the set of these quotidian referents is the only guarantee so that they can adapt to any environment. It is only when they have had the “taste” of proper treatment that they are able to reverse it wherever they may be, even under difficult circumstances. With great intelligence and generosity, they seek the best options.
5) What is the role of adults who care for children in the environment you have created?
Their role is to maintain the quality of the set, relaxed environment, facilitate autonomous and sensory-motor activity of the child, offer deep, emotional consideration, treat them without conditionings, pressure, or expectations, make the environment hazardous-ridden, value the child's ability to do things on their own, give them the chance to be themselves, be ready to understand them, look after their well-being, and to keep reports on their development within the Institution.
6) Can children do as they please? Isn’t that too anarchic?
Nuestro Hogar is a place in where children can live, spontaneously find many ways and resources to meet their sensory-motor and affective needs. It is a suitable environment for their growth and development, which requires few, simple, clear house rules. For instance, they are not allowed to strike other children, they must put toys back in their places, and they have to wash their hands before eating. These are important referents to achieving a harmonious coexistence. The child feels secure and loved when we do not allow them to do whatever they want. Also, limits are established firmly and affectively, not through punishments. In order to care for them with dignity, we are guided by practical-life situations: a child who misbehaves is because he or she feels bad or is suffering. Signs of malaise are nursed together with all the children and, if allowed, with physical contact and affection.
7) What qualifications do the people who care for children at Nuestro Hogar have? What kind of training do they receive?
They are high school graduates who share an interest in children and openness to a change in attitude. Before caring for children at Nuestro Hogar, they are trained at the Institution regarding the attainment of skills and basic knowledge to treat them with respect. Once they can handle being alone with the children, they attend personal meetings as needed, weekly meetings for each area, and a training session for the entire staff on a monthly basis.
8) This all sounds great, but have you gotten any concrete results? How many children have you cared for so far?
It does not only sound great. Both the 15 children who have returned to their families and the 12 who remain at the institution are healthy and happy. The departure of the children was possible because they managed to captivate a level of intimacy with their parents or relatives when visited at Nuestro Hogar; they saw that their children were irresistibly cute, affectionate, and cheerful—not as a burden or with whom they did not know what to do. The children were able to spark the adults’ interests in learning to treat them as people and not as objects. The professional and personal staff at AMI has contributed, and continues to contribute, in aiding the personal processes of these adults.
9) How is Nuestro Hogar and activities at AMI funded?
The Amigos de la Vida Foundation was legally created in 2003. The house where Nuestro Hogar operates was built and equipped with resources provided by the founders, who have also shouldered part of the expenses. Funding is exclusively private, thanks mainly to “Graine d'Affection”, located in Switzerland and France, which channels the contributions of an extensive network of private friends and some private companies. If you are interested in being part of this network of partners, write to us at ami@fundacionami.org.ec
10) I've heard that early stimulation is very successful in children. Do you use this technique at Nuestro Hogar?
Early stimulation is a set of techniques that seeks to influence the ability of children at an early age and wishes to ensure, in the least possible time, that children achieve competences adults find appealing and amazing. We do not agree with this. We trust in the wisdom of the body and in the way that nature has determined its developmental processes. The resulting consequences from early stimulation are severe. Forcing the child to "stay ahead" of his or her natural process to meet expectations of others will eventually override the specific mechanisms of interaction with the environment and will take them down a dead end street—where boredom and lack of concentration and creativity lie. This causes much suffering. The child incorporates a sense of being accepted and loved when caregivers understand them and do not force them to do things they are not yet ready to do: changing positions, sitting, walking, feeding themselves, and talking.
11) This is a new way of working. Are there any other institutions using similar methods?
Nuestro Hogar, as well as other institutions in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, has been inspired by the work of the Emmi Pikler Institute. This institute, located in Budapest, was established over 50 years ago. Here, in Ecuador, there was a very important experience of which the founders of the Amigos de la Vida Foundation took part. It was developed for about 30 years through an educational approach through the autonomous, spontaneous activity of children and adolescents. The work of the AMI Foundation is largely based on this experience.
12) At Nuestro Hogar, children are very well looked after. However, they are later reunited with their families, where the economic situation and the customs or conditions may not be the same. Is it wise to get them used to something that they may later on not have?
Many people who have visited us have said: "The children here look great; they look really happy; everything has been tailored for them; but, when they leave, they won’t be treated in the same way." So, we wonder, will we have to mistreat children here so that they are better prepared for the outside world? Isn’t the abuse they have experienced not enough? Many people who have visited us have said: "The children here look great; they look really happy; everything has been tailored for them; but, when they leave, they won’t be treated in the same way." So, we wonder, will we have to mistreat children here so that they are better prepared for the outside world? Isn’t the abuse they have experienced not enough?
13) When a child returns to his family, do relationships with the institution end?
No, quite the contrary. The moment when a child returns to his or her family is one of the most important stages of our work—it allows for different people with different personalities to come together. Here is when each and every one of the child’s experiences and strengths are put into play. For the adult, this is a litmus test; they understand that they play a significant role in the success of this act of love. The Institution, for their part, trusts, respects, and accompanies this "new birth". We are a resource for as long as we are needed, possibly during most of the child’s development. As in any constructive process, there are moments of instability. Therefore, our presence and the confidence instilled in us by the family are important, yet we must always be careful not to influence their decisions while safeguarding the family’s peace and safekeeping.
14) Do all children return to their families?
In some cases, despite our research and efforts, there are children for whom we have not found any relatives. In these cases, we make arrangements with the Court for Children and Adolescents (Juzgados de la Niñez y Adolescencia) to aid in the adoption process. We prefer the latter rather than transfering children to other institutions because of the potential for stability, the close, individual attention to children, the facilitation of the creation of safe, emotional, enduring ties, and the opportunity to provide for them a normal social life.
15) Does AMI work with other institutions?
With some, and at different levels, both in the country and abroad. We are part of an NGO network and work with the Centers for Equity and Justice of the Metropolitan District of Quito (Centros de Equidad y Justicia del Municipio del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito). We also participate in various meetings and activities with government institutions in defining projects and strategies that care for vulnerable sectors, such as victims of child abuse, violence, or the differently skilled. We work together with different institutions in various parts of the country for consultations, talks, workshops, and seminars, under the viewpoint of a responsible, warm treatment to the child and their family. We preserve a very respectful, cooperative relationship with institutions that care for adolescents, where several of our children’s mothers have made a home. We are active members of "l'Association International Pikler (Lóczy)" AIP(L) and also participated in the World Forum that started this year, in which we form part of the group working on institutional care for children. We have frequent experiential exchanges with other professionals both in various Latin American countries and in other parts of the world. We are very close to the “Graine d’affection” Associations of Switzerland and France, who contribute to our financial support. We also have the support of “une option de plus” and “fondation voyageurs du monde”.