With an investment of 176.000€ from national and international
cooperation, COMFENALCO Antioquia will implement the second phase of the Center
for Integral Attention to Childhood located in the 4 de Junio
neighborhood in the Town of Apartado.
This center will attend over 6.000 persons per year, mostly those affected
by the flooding of the Apartado
River in 2005.
During the
project’s first phase and with the resources received from national and
international cooperation, the Center was built and the necessary equipment
acquired for entering into the second phase, which will offer the following
services:
1. Initial
Education: The Center will offer
education initially through the following services:
- Adequate stimulation programs
for gestating families and children from 2 months to 2 years old.
- Group Home Program for
locating 3 ICBF community mothers and the children under their care.
- Formal Preschool Education
Program for the levels of kindergarten and transition.
- A children’s games library
that would include a service of traveling boxes with children’s
literature.
2. Health
promotion and disease prevention: This
component includes the following activities:
- Anthropometric measurements in
order to evaluate the nutritional status and development of the child
beneficiaries.
- Parasite cleansing, considering
that malnourishment, besides being a problem associated with
marginalization and poverty, reduces defenses and favors helminth
infestations.
- Daily nutrition for children
that use the Group Home and the Preschool, who will receive close to 54.4%
of the daily recommended calorie and nutritional intake for their age
group, even during the vacation period.
- Oral health activities,
including fluorization and sealer application for preventing caries and
promoting oral hygiene.
- Control of the vaccination
scheme promoted by the Enlarged Vaccination Program PAI and vaccination
against Meningitis.
3. Training
socializing agents: As the
children’s integral development is closely tied to the level of training of
their parents and the socializing agents responsible for their care, the
following programs will be offered through the Center for Integral Attention to
Childhood:
- Training for Parents on two
basic fronts: Human Training as a reinforcement for the pedagogical
intervention being carried out with the children, and Formal Education
(first, second and third grade of primary school) in order to strengthen
adult literacy processes.
- Training for Community
Mothers: This training will include two basic activities: training as
Leaders for the Integral Attention of Children and training in Food
Handling.