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Para PREVENIR la violencia, dependemos de Miles de Manos: Creating Change Through Community Collaboration and Vocational Opportunity
By Julian Hernandez-Webster
(Violence runs rampant throughout Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), especially among young people, and despite efforts from national governments and international powers the problem remains persistent. In 2019, 43 of the world’s 50 most violent cities were located in LAC, where young men are most likely to become victims or perpetrators of violent crimes and young women commonly face threats of sexual violence and domestic abuse while femicide rates are among the highest in the world (Seguridad, Justicia, y Paz México 2020; Esmail 2019, para. 1; ECLAC 2022). Among the many national youth development and violence prevention policies or strategies that have been adopted in response, the Central American Integration System (SICA), in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), created the PREVENIR program to bring about change in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala (The Northern Triangle). While PREVENIR included interventions for a range of factors related to citizen security, it placed an emphasis on educational reform through its “Miles de Manos” (Thousands of Hands) model and expansion of technical and vocational education training (TVET) as a catalyst for the reduction of youth violence and improvement in outcomes for students.
(Sanchez et al., p. 7)
Miles de Manos aims to “help children and young people effectively face the challenges of daily life” and prevent violence through schooling and extracurricular learning by strengthening the educational and communication skills of parents, teachers, and students, facilitating their cooperation, and supporting a culture of unity in each community (Miles de Manos 2023). The program was implemented in Central America’s Northern Triangle from 2009-2019, employing an “ecosystemic approach” which maintained that “significant others” such as teachers, parents, and peers play a key role in the development of young people and their behaviors. At the same time, the PREVENIR program sought to establish a knowledge management system in participating schools and develop institutional capacity to broaden vocational opportunities for young people at local and national levels (Esmail 2019, para. 5). Through Miles de Manos, SICA has trained educators, parents, and students using the organization’s facilitation guides, contributing to the establishment of frameworks for coexistence and behavioral expectations, enhanced communication practices, and the implementation of a democratic, participatory approach that grants students more autonomy in defining disciplinary strategies and encourages the development of problem solving and social skills (Miles de Manos 2023).
RESULTS
After seeing promising preliminary results from pilot programs in Guatemala and El Salvador, USAID funded an expansion of the Miles de Manos methodology into Honduras in 2014. Acting as an implementing partner, ChildFund Honduras selected 72 schools in high-risk urban settings – 36 pilot and 36 control – to test the functionality of Miles de Manos within local contexts (Sanchez et al. 2017, p. 5). The pilot program lasted 18 months, provided training to 265 teachers and benefitted 2,269 families (ibid. p. 6). Some of the most striking findings are included below:
- 20% increase in students that reported feeling safe and protected in their classroom and home – from 70%-90%
- In target schools, the monthly average incidence (reported by teachers) of…
- Emotional and psychological violence among students declined from 199 to 81
- Sexual violence among students declined by 50% – from 14 to 7
- Physical violence among students declined from 82 events to 31
- Disciplinary action declined from 306 to 138 events
- In-school vandalism dropped by 50% – from 14 to 7 events per month on average
- 34/36 pilot schools established peace and safety plans to respond to students’ needs
- Slight increase in students who report use of positive discipline from their parents, and students that know the expectations of their teachers regarding behavior and consequences
(Sanchez et al. 2017, p. 10-11)
The German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), another implementing partner, reported the following:
“Visible physical violence between young people in these schools was reduced by 20 per cent over a period of six months. Communication between teachers and students improved, and learning and behavioural issues were increasingly solved in a spirit of partnership. Between 2014 and 2016, the education ministries in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador introduced Miles de Manos in another 600 schools and school networks. A total of 9,000 teachers took part in the training, and some 120,000 students are participating.”
(Esmail 2019, para. 10).
Additionally, the PREVENIR program developed a digital platform to promote youth employment at the end of 2015, providing young people with information about educational grants, entrepreneurship courses, job opportunities, manual training, and crucial life skills (Esmail 2019, para. 7). By the end of 2016, the program had constructed 25 computer centers, provided training to approximately 7100 youth, and created sustainable mechanisms that have enabled communities to continue the program independently (ibid.).
(Fumigalli 2018)
CONCLUSIONS
With its successful execution in several communities across three countries, the Miles de Manos model has caught the attention of massively influential international development institutions, such as USAID and NIH. As the combination of the Miles de Manos model and TVET has expanded to three Central American countries, with successes in each, the evidence suggests that the model can be replicated and has the potential for broader implementation. By providing the tools needed to establish collaborative peace plans and democratic disciplinary structures, Miles de Manos has made a positive impact on the wellbeing of students by significantly improving communication and mutual understanding of expectations, and ultimately reducing physical, psychological, and sexual violence in schools.
Despite its accomplishments, however, the program falls short in a few key areas. First, while the model was applied to schools in urban environments, rural children and youth make up a great deal of the population of students left out by current educational systems in the Northern Triangle. While providing quality education in rural areas presents a number of challenges, Miles de Manos should try to expand its outreach or alter the model to make education more relevant and accessible for these students. Additionally, while Miles de Manos embraces a framework that seeks to harness community engagement in order to cultivate cohesion and enhance the autonomy of students, similar in some ways to principles of the previously mentioned radical humanist paradigm, the methodology seems to address interpersonal relationships but largely overlooks individual reflection and development. A strategy that adds self-discovery initiatives to the model could deepen personal growth and also serve to make the Miles de Manos methodology more equitable, as parental involvement cannot be the same for every student. It is essential that all children and youth, in any community, feel that they have as much a place within it as those around them.
REFERENCES
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (2022, November 24). Femicide or feminicide. Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://oig.cepal.org/en/indicators/femicide-or-feminicide
Esmail, R. (2019). SICA: Preventing youth violence in Central America. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/13494.html
Fumagalli, L. (2018, December 21). Training on teacher policies in Latin America. International Institute for Educational Planning. Retrieved March 17, 2023, from https://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/training-teacher-policies-latin-america-4790
Miles de Manos. (2023). Familias y escuela: ¡Juntas hacen la diferencia! Miles de Manos. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://milesdemanos.com/index.php/miles-de-manos/#1488898488093-49198718-5af3
Sanchez, R., Susman, K., Ramirez, D., Funez, K., Najera, D., Kocchiu, D., & Betancourt, P. (2017). (rep.). Executive Summary PUENTES PROJECT. USAID, ChildFund Honduras. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://www.childfund.org/uploadedFiles/NewCF/Impact/Knowledge_Center/ExecSummary-PuentesHonduras.pdf.
Seguridad, Justicia, y Paz. (2020, June 2). Boletín Ranking 2019 de las 50 ciudades más violentas del mundo. Seguridad, Justicia, y Paz. Retrieved March 5, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20200804121557/http://www.seguridadjusticiaypaz.org.mx/sala-de-prensa/1590-boletin-ranking-2019-de-las-50-ciudades-mas-violentas-del-mundo
Reimagining Public Education: The Path to Safer & More Prosperous Communities in Latin America
By: Julian Hernandez-Webster
(Bagby et al., 2021, p. 1)
While the case of each individual is, of course, unique, there are several factors that can have a great impact in shaping the path that someone’s life will follow, and education is among the most important. A child that grows up in an environment in which education is readily available, featuring quality resources and teachers to stoke their ambitions and abilities, has a distinct advantage in life outcomes over a child whose environment has limited educational access and mediocre educators or programs. Communities like the latter are often further afflicted by other systemic weaknesses such as inadequate infrastructure, poor health care, scarce economic opportunity, institutional corruption, and deep inequality or injustice. While the first child has the support of societal frameworks that allow them to develop and their dreams to flourish, the second may feel invisible or abandoned by their society, or that their dreams are too unrealistic to be worth pursuing. In his Ted Talk, titled The real roots of youth violence, Craig Pinkney says that “if young people feel they are not part of our village, they will burn it down to feel its warmth” (2016, min. 5:25-5:35).
Which environment aligns more with your lived experience? If you were a child again, the same as you were before, how might your life be different if that environment were the opposite? How crucial has the role of education been in your path to the present?
I will use this space to discuss the relationship between access to quality education and the prevalence of youth criminality, particularly violence, as it pertains to the larger development goal of citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).
Conceptual & Contextual Framing
As education is such a broad concept, it is helpful to first define the concept in order to paint a picture of how it could be. If learning is, as Daniel Wagner writes, “…how we reach our human potential, and it is codified in the myriad customs every culture uses to define what it means to be human,” then education encompasses the many ways in which we encourage, facilitate, and develop learning in others (2017, p. 55). While education can take place in both formal and informal settings, which differ fundamentally in the level of structure or institutionality of the context in which learning occurs, most education systems at the national level are comprised of a network of schools. Accordingly, for the purposes of this piece education will be synonymous with schooling. Within LAC, the public education systems of most countries fall well short of enabling each nation’s students to reach their potential, and instead of high prevalence of school enrollment or levels of student engagement, rates of youth criminality soars as violence grips the children and adolescents of communities throughout the region.
Latin America and the Caribbean, in part as a result of a long history of foreign political and economic intervention (mostly at the hands of the United States in recent times, although Spain, France, Portugal and others have done plenty of damage as well going back further), is in particularly poor standing when it comes to citizen security. As a metric of a society’s level of development, citizen security is made up of many factors, including compliance with a society’s rules and norms of coexistence, efficiency of the justice system, and perhaps most importantly, the prevalence or threat level of violence. In a report from 2018, the Inter-American Development Bank shares that, “Although the [LAC] region does not have any armed conflicts, it shows high levels of violence with the highest homicide rate in the world: 22.3 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants compared to the global average of 5.3 in 2015” (Chinchilla and Vorndran 2018, p. 11). They add that “an estimated 43% of the population is constantly afraid of being a victim of crime,” and young people are particularly vulnerable as they are more likely to be both victims and perpetrators of violence (ibid.). Other factors come into play as well, such as gender and poverty.
Educational Reform Can Make All the Difference
While billions of dollars have been poured into efforts to increase security by force, widespread education reform may actually hold the key to reducing youth violence, improving educational access and attainment, and transforming communities or entire societies through sustained social and political action. The conceptual framework in Figure ES.1 shows the theory of change developed in the USAID’s Evidence Review of the effect of education programs on violence, crime, and related outcomes, demonstrating how an education system “can help children and youth to lead productive lives and prevent divergence onto negative pathways where violence and crime play a part” (Bagby et al., 2021, p. 3). The findings suggest that continued access and engagement in school, as well as the social-emotional skills they develop in the process, make children and youth more likely to avoid risky behaviors, violence, and crime.
(Bagby et al., 2021, p. 3)
Education reform, in this region and context, should begin with a strong commitment by State governments to increase access to education among LAC youth, ideally with the support of international, civil society, and nongovernmental organizations. It must emphasize expansion so that programs extend to reach rural communities, the restructuring of curriculums to improve their relevance and build connections with students at primary and secondary levels, and investment in the quality of education by strengthening the training of teachers and distributing resources and learning tools. Additionally, by linking this renewed pedagogical approach with a radical humanist framework, States throughout LAC can promote widespread engagement with their youth. This is no simple feat, but if managed properly and executed successfully, it would build capacity in children and adolescents to develop a better understanding of themselves and their place in society, particularly in areas that have traditionally been underserved by or left out of formal education processes entirely. Ultimately, this “critical consciousness” and democratization of education would likely inspire higher rates of social and political involvement and lower rates of youth violence, slowly transforming communities, and eventually, entire societies.
In an environment like this, even youth growing up in less than ideal circumstances might feel like they are a part of something: a community bigger than themselves and those in their immediate surroundings. With the right educational system in place, featuring institutionalized values of self-discovery and individual agency, they can feel that they are indeed visible.
References:
Bagby, E., Murray, N., Felix, E., Liuzzi, S., Aldredge, J. M., Ingwersen, N., Abracar, P., & Aponte, A. (2021). Evidence review: The effect of education programs on violence, crime, and related outcomes. USAID. Retrieved February 23, 2023, from https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00XGXS.pdf.
Chinchilla, L., & Vorndran, D. (2018). (issue brief). Citizen Security in Latin America and the Caribbean. Inter-American Development Bank. Retrieved February 23, 2023, from https://www.thedialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LChinchilla_CitSecEng_Nov2018.pdf.
Pinkney, C. (n.d.). The real roots of youth violence. TEDxBrum. United Kingdom; United Kingdom. Retrieved February 23, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWNTMmktoCQ.
Wagner, D. A. (2017). Chapter 3: Learning as Development. In Learning as development: Rethinking international education in a Changing World (pp. 54–77). Routledge.
