Introduction

The Production Workshop Project is our answer to the need of extra income for children and young adults in their homes (such income generally is used for food, clothing, and other personal expenses). This project keeps children from working on the streets or doing other things that are not formative or growth inspiring, as can be the case with many jobs such as cleaning private homes or laying concrete. The project, however, is not only a tool for working towards dignified employment, but also acts as a space for alternative education where participants are recipients of information in many diverse areas such as: art, music, social science, spirituality, and computer science among others. In addition, the workers and workshop coordinator support other students to continue their primary and secondary education in welcoming systems and with academic consultation.

Objective

Our objective is to create productive/educational workshops which promote a social conscience of justice and dignity in the young people involved. Thanks to work done in an atmosphere of respect and cooperation, which also generates gainful employment and income, such a thing is possible.

Our Proposal

The benefit of workshops and production oriented learning has been known well before the founding of Caminando Unidos A.C. In 1990, with a community of 500 displaced families in what is now Ahuehuetitla (a colony in Cuernavaca), we worked to apply such a model. From the first years of contact with the community, cooperation and diversifying the workforce--through learning while producing—showed itself as a successful way to aid the community.

We have been inspired by the Gandhiana philosophy, by the experiences of Don Vasco de Quiroga, by Michoacán, and by San Juan Bautista De La Salle--who created art and trade workshops for poor children in France. Each production based workshop that inspired us had its own distinct results. Here in Cuernavaca, there have been production based workshops in fields such as serigrafía, manual labor, and computation shared by young people from the Univsidad La Salle and ITESm-Morelos, all of which were open to anyone in the community.

The two workshops within Caminando Unidos A.C. are “Corte y Confeccion” (Fashion and Fabrication) and “Papel Reciclado” (Paper Recycling). The workshops have supported the personal growth of many children. We have been witnesses to, through creative and productive activities, children that have succeeded in overcoming personal obstacles and placed themselves in activities they had not been able to participate in before. We believe that the experience of feeling useful, the power to create and produce something with their hands has had success in adding significance in their lives --significance other children have found in group work. Workshops promote alternative and integral education as well as generate income for young people who would otherwise be employed on the streets or in occupations that do little to contribute to their development.

As already stated, the two workshops which operate out of Caminando Unidos are one of the fashion and fabrication which is called TONALLI, and the other works under the name of TUTU’U RACUATI’I, which recycles paper and does graphic design. Both workshops commercialize their products and we invite you to get to know them in their respective pages: Productos de Manta (Products from cloth) and Productos de Papel Reciclado (Products from recycled paper).

We are looking to provide a space where young people from marginalized urban zones can learn a trade that provides gainful employment and/or places them in the labor market with many skills. Our mission is to promote in each young person a work ethic sustained through responsibility, compromise, seriousness, professionalism, and efficiency through which they can raise their own expectations and goals. To reach ones true potential starts with having gainful employment and a trade-skill that is in demand, permitting them to have higher salaries. Academic and trade-skills raise self-esteem and self-confirmation and in turn autonomy, freedom and opportunity.