OBJECTIVE
Ever since the poverty study was carried out in 1998, which resulted in the publication of “” in 1999, Reda Sosial has aimed her activities more towards combating poverty through integrated neighborhood development on the Netherlands Antilles.
On a short term special attention went to infrastructure projects like improving roads, houses, school buildings, neighborhood centers, sports facilities and education projects like renewal of school materials.
Projects.
Most of the projects that Reda Sosial has started in 2004 are directly related to combating poverty. The emphasis lies on enlarging the self reliability of the participants. We focused on the project that Reda Sosial did on Curacao.
These projects are from the period July 2004 till October 2005.
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Continuation integrated neighbourhood development in St. Jago
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Economic development of the Center of the City (Otrobanda, Punda)
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Housing Improvement in deprived neighbourhoods (Nieuw-Nederland, Monteverde/Coronet, Rooi Santu, Otrobanda, Dein, Souax, Soto) (N.B.: involvement of jobless people in execution of neighbourhood improvement projects)
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Renovation Brakkeput Children Home
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Health information Fuik and St. Jago
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Budgeting courses
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School uniforms and schoolmaterials for families from deprived neighbourhoods
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Tourist Information Booth Punda
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Music stand Otrobanda
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Taximetres
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Market stands Awasa Otrobanda
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Multifunctional Community Center Souax (sportsfield included)
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After-care aimed at rehabilitated Drug Addicts
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Literacy Courses
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Medical appliances St. Elisabeth Hospital
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Provisions for elderly and disabled persons
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Community Center Mahuma
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Community Center Rooi Santu
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Renovation Brasami to shelter and for treatment of drugaddicts
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Eletronic Registration Application Brasami (registration and information drugaddicted clients)
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Maritime Education (FEFFIK) to increase opportunities for drop-outs and unemployed
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Higher Vocational Training in Behaviour and Society (HOGMA)
- Auxiliary Home Barahona (Buena Vista)
Our program.
Seeing the fact that all the projects of Reda Sosial are based on:
- Preventing poverty,
- Helping people
- Renewing buildings –organization and neighborhoods.
We have noticed that they did not have a program that is specially based on teen mothers. Therefore we as group have come up with a whole new idea of a program for Reda Sosial.
Our Program Background information:
Because the relationship between academic failure and teen pregnancy is so strong, and because teen pregnancy affects the educational achievement of teens themselves as well as that of their children, those concerned about educating young people should also be concerned with preventing teen pregnancy. Moreover, given the increasing demands in schooling necessary to qualify for a well-paying job, it is more important than ever for teens to finish high school and attain post secondary education when possible.
- Less than half of mothers (40 percent) who have a child before they turn 18 ever graduate from high school compared with about three-quarters of similarly situated young women who delay child bearing until age 20 or 21.
- Furthermore, less than two percent of mothers who have children before age 18 have a college degree by age 30 compared to nine percent of young women who wait until age 20 or 21 to have children.
- Children of teen mothers are more likely than mothers who gave birth at age 20-21 to drop out of high school. In fact, only about two-thirds of children born to teen mothers earned a high school diploma compared to 81 percent of children of later child bearers.
- Children of teen mothers also do not perform as well as children of older mothers on measures of child development and school readiness such as cognition, language and communication, and interpersonal skills. They are also less likely to read simple books independently and to demonstrate early writing ability compared to the children of mothers aged 20-21.
- Children of teen mothers do worse in school than those born to older parents. They are 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade, are less likely to complete high school than the children of older mothers, and have lower performance on standardized tests.
Teenage mothers are at risk for long-term problems in many major areas of life, including school failure, poverty, and physical or mental illness. The teenage mothers themselves are also at risk for these problems. Teenage pregnancy is usually a crisis for the pregnant girl and her family. Common reactions include anger, guilt, and denial. If the father is young and involved, similar reactions can occur in his family.
Why does a teen girl gets pregnant?
- The main reason why young girls get pregnant is having unsafe sex.
With unsafe sex we mean; when a boy penetrates a girl and neither of them are using contraceptives to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
- Another reason is poverty or a lack of information, sometimes young people don't have the money to buy contraceptives or sufficient correct information to know what they are doing and what are the consequences.
- A third reason is abusing of young girls, there are some people (boys/adult) who rapes the young girls, and they can get pregnant. Maybe the girl or her family doesn’t have the money to do an abortion at time, or it’s too late to have an abortion.
Our program will be as follows:
Realizing that the world is changing and the mentality of especially the young people is also changing, we are facing the fact that the young ladies are getting pregnant at a young age. And with young age we mean the age group of 15 till 21 years old. As illustrated in Table F.1 (page 8) we can see that in the age group of 15 till 21 years old, the numbers of children born are extremely high.
Because of their unexpected pregnancy, the chance of continuing with their study and getting a job is diminishing. Also the welfare they receive from the government is not enough to cover all the child’s expenses and go to school at the same time.
Our plan is to select 10 teen mothers from different neighborhoods that because of the circumstances of life don’t have the capability to get a job or go to school at the same time. We will finance their study for one (1) school year and at the same time help them get a job so that when the year passes by they will have an income to cover the rest of their study expenses.
Regarding their children, we will cover 5 year of half a day childcare expenses. For the children to get to the daycare we will let a bus pick them up at 7 ‘o clock in the morning and drop them off at the daycare. The bus will come and pick them up at 3 ‘o clock and drop them at home.
Every 5 years we will select 10 new teen mothers to join this program.
To be eligible for the program the young mothers should be:
- Under welfare
- Between the ages 15-21
- Must bring an original birth certificate of their child/children
- Have maximum 2 children
- Proof of last grade completed in high school
- Do not have sufficient income to attend school
- Teenagers who have been in care or who have little family support.
Our conditions for this program are:
- Every year the mothers must give us a school declaration that they are still in school.
- They must assure us that they don’t have another source of income.
- The mothers must prevent pregnancy during this program. If they get pregnant anyways, they will need to leave the program.
- The mothers must have 2 children maximal.
- Once a month they will get an appointment with us to evaluate their progress.
Our management plan.
Target group:
As I already mentioned in our program, our main target group will be the teen mothers between the ages of 15 till 21 that do not have sufficient income to attend school.
Promotion:
The way we are going to promote this program is by using the following promotion methods: Flyers, radio and television.
Distribution:
The teen mothers that are interested in our program could go by Reda Sosial and fill in a form. If we exceed the number of teen mother that want to take part of the program. In that case we will make a selection of 10 teen mothers to begin with this program.
Our financial plan.
We have made a budget for this program. In this budget you will see the expected expenses we will have during the course of 5 years.
The study: we have calculated that for the first year we will have an expense of fls.26, 500 which include uniforms, the study/school expenses and also books.
The daycare: we calculated that the daycare will cost fls. 400 per month, we assume that every mother could have 2 children maximum. So for 1 year we should pay fls. 96,000 on daycare.
The Bus: we should pay per year fls. 24,000 on bus expenses. Fls. 100 per ride, and we calculate that, that will be 20 times in a month.
Achievement
With this program we want to bring some hope to the teen mothers, that even though they don’t have a lot of money and got an unplanned pregnancy they can still be able to continue on with their studies. We also want to break the cycle of young girls having kids and not continuing their education by helping this generation raise their educational attainment levels, raise their expectations and move out of poverty and into work.
Sources
Websites:
