Starting From Scratch - Even if Delayed, a Child's Education Needs to Start Somewhere
Mimi Chavez met Benita Adauto when she was six.
“She was a scrawny little thing with a thirst for knowledge but she didn’t know how to write her own name,” recalls Benita, a longtime SOS mother at the Pachacamac village in Peru.
Six years on, Mimi has been top of her year at school for two years running. When she is not studying or helping at home, she sings, dances, plays the recorder, and hones her judo and badminton skills.
She is also a devoted sister to her SOS siblings, taking the time to help them with their homework and to play.
“She was so embarrassed when she first started going to school,” says Benita. “All of the other kids could read and it took time for her to learn. The other kids laughed at her, so I came to school with her in the mornings to play with her.
“I told her, ‘Don’t pay any attention to them. You will learn to read and you can learn anything you want to learn.’ After school, at night and on the weekends, we worked with her to improve her skills.”
Playing games like “letter soup”, where you scatter individual cards with letter across a table and match them to words, Mimi quickly learned her alphabet. Then she practiced new words with mother and siblings using flashcards.
Benita knew Mimi had conquered her literacy challenge the day she brought her a banner she’d made. She’d drawn a picture of her SOS home and the village and written “Mummy Benita, I love you so much”.
“I learn quickly,” says Mimi with a smile. “I’ve won a lot of prizes already and I want to win more. When I grow up I’d like to be a business manager.”
About SOS Children's Villages in Peru
SOS Children's Villages is currently running 12 Village in Peru, caring for 900 orphaned and abandoned children. There are an additional 8 SOS Youth Facilities housing 90 youths, 10 youth programs assisting 259 youths, 10 SOS Social Centres assisting 8,557 children and adults and one SOS Vocational Training Centre which provides skills training to 106 beneficiaries.