Youth for Development Prize 2005
Development
Project name:
“Mantay; Mothers, Murals & Mosaics”
Country: Ireland
Team members (Young leaders)
- LYNAM Susie
- DOWLING Stephen
- QUINN Isabelle
- COURTENET Therese
General description
During a 3.5 week expedition to Peru in 2004 by 38 Irish Rovers we engaged in a 2 community based development projects:
1. The Mantay House Project in San Geronimo: here we worked with a local contact and community group called Mantay that assists young single mothers and their children. The majority of the girls are rape victims and our special job was to decorate a new refuge for them, provide educational materials and do a “mother & child” photo portraits as a gift for the mothers.
2. The Cusco Interactive Mural Project. This involved the Venturers designing and creating the outline of a 300 meters long “interactive mural”. We painted the outline of a cartoon style educational mural in the centre of Cusco that local agencies dealing with street children would later colour in according to a colour scheme that we had left with them.
On top of co-operation from agencies within Peru both projects were carried out with the assistance of local Scouts & Rovers from the St. Pauls Scout Group in Cusco.
Summary of Accomplishments
The achievements of our project relate closest to the following 3 Millennium Goals:
- Promoting gender equality & empowering women.
- Improving maternal health.
- Developing a global partnership for development.
As you know we completed 2 projects during our time in Peru. This is a summary of what we achieved and how it contributes to the 3 Millennium Goals:
Project 1 - Mantay House
Mantay Mission Statement =
“The Mantay project seeks to avoid the abandonment of children by their teenage unwed mothers by improving their life conditions through technical training, resulting in their independence and enhanced self esteem”
By working with Mantay we too adopted this and put plans in place to have our Scouts assist them in their mission. To put our work in context: 1 in 4 mothers in Peru are under the age of 18. We found this statistic significant as it related to the age range of the Venturers working on the Mantay House.
“Casa de Acongida Mantay” is a single mothers shelter. It was created in 2000 by a Spanish Couple as a reaction to the statistic that 25% of Peruvian mothers are under 18 and a large proportion of these are rape victims who have found themselves in a state of physical and emotional abandonment. The shelter aim is to provide an environment in which they can develop their role as mothers and also enjoy their adolescence and practical skills in a leather workshop. Mantays role is to provide knowledge, skills, resources and support. In their old house they were able to provide services to 10 girls and their children.
In January 2004 Mantay built a new shelter that would extend their capacity to catering for 20 girls and their children. Having made contact with them from Ireland through a local intermediary (an ex Irish Venturer leader – Charlie Donovan) we planned how we could make this new “house” into a “home”. Our first direct contact came when we visited the old shelter for one day and saw the basic facilities and met the mums with their beautiful children. From a strategic point of view this visit was crucial as it filled us with the resolve and enthusiasm that made us give 110% commitment to our tasks. It was also at this point that we learned of the girls horrific history and how they ended up being at Mantay.
Our work in the house was divided into 4 parts: The patio play area, Murals & painting, 2 mosaics and the photo project. In a large group there are many talents, and the artistic amongst us set to work on co-ordinating the decoration of the house. Planning & delegation between the tribes was important as we had so little time and so many features to address – an infirmary, educational room swell as 2 bathrooms, 10 bedrooms and a kitchen.
The various tribes undertook each of their mammoth tasks with enthusiasm and great humour. At the heart of the house we created a central patio play area. On our first visit we were faced with a very raw site, a rubble strewn construction zone. This took long hours of determination to turn it into an area that we saw as good enough for the Mantay children. Given the scale and tedious nature of our jobs we had really accomplished a lot by the end.
While all this was going on another Tribe was working on taking a “photo-portrait” of each mother and child in the old shelter. This was a very special part of our work as the photos were later presented to the girls as a moving in present. There were many tears of joy that day!
Project 2 – The Interactive Mural
A detailed 300m mural depicting our interpretation of traditional Peruvian scenes was designed and drawn by the Venturers & Rovers. At a later date this was to be filled or “coloured” in, as part of the celebration of childrens day in Peru, by the street children of Cusco using a “paint by numbers” pattern designed by our Rovers. When we were painting the mural outline on the railway station wall it gave us a great chance to talk to and learn from all the passers by who stopped to chat and admire our work. If the street children enjoyed colouring it in as much as we did painting the outline, they will have had a fantastic day.
Through the completion of these 2 projects the Venturers and Rovers gained many valuable experiences – working as a team, developing themselves, helping others to develop and volunteering nothing but their time and talents for the good of others. But, it is perhaps in the participation, not the completion of the projects that show exactly what kind of people these scouts really are. As scouts of the world they are enthusiastic, dedicated young people who were deeply affected by their experiences in Peru, both personally and as a group. By their own actions they were achieving the Millennium Goals of improving maternal health, promoting equality, empowering the young women of Mantay and developing a global partnership, not just for development, but more importantly for friendship.
The Youth for Development Prize is awarded every year to teams of young people who have run innovative projects in the framework of the Millennium Development Goals, in the fields of environment, development or peace.
The Youth for Development Prize is granted by a World Jury formed of world renewed experts in the fields of environment, development and peace.
Around the world many groups of young people are developing projects within their communities to improve the conditions of life, protect the environment, challenges prejudices and make the world a better place. Our aim is to collect information on these projects and to encourage more young people to develop new projects related to the Millennium Development Goals and to improve their quality and their impact.
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