CBB's partner in Mexico is the Las Hormigas Community Center, located in an abandoned garbage dump of Juarez, just across the fence on the U.S. border. The Las Hormigas (The Ants) Community Center is so named because “ants are little creatures that get a lot done through teamwork while no one is watching”. Former peasants who have been displaced from their ancestral land have squatted in this place, built homes, and sometimes acquired title to the land they live on. Nonetheless, conditions are harsh, with rampant drugs and alcoholism, and pervasive violence in the community and at home.
Montessori school
Compassion Beyond Borders funds a Montessori school at the Las Hormigas center for girls who cannot attend a public school due to emotional, physical or other handicaps. Through the specialized instruction the girls receive, within a year or two they acquire an ability to learn normally, and are able to continue their education, either in a public school or in correspondence study.
Non-violence workshops
As so often happens in poor families of the developing world, violence is a normal way of life. Husbands and fathers are violent with their wives and children, mothers pass the violence they receive from their husbands on to their children, and the children grow up to be violent parents, with no awareness that there is any other way of life. Violence is a never ending cycle.
A dozen mothers are now in training at Las Hormigas, sharing their experiences as victims of violence since they were girls--be it physical, emotional, sexual, etc., learning that there is a better way to live. Most of these women are single mothers, and most have children in Las Hormigas Montessori school. These children initially bring the violence they experience at home to school with them. Nonetheless, they are quickly taught the advantages of living in harmony with each other.
The combination of confronting violence with both the children and their mothers transforms most of their homes. The mothers stop being violent to their children. The men begin to change how they treat their partners and children. This program is so successful that workshops for men will soon be beginning.
