Is Viva Equip making projects too good?

From staff management and financial accountability to child protection and wellbeing, Viva Equip Projects has built a great reputation for addressing issues of effective child care. But in La Paz, Bolivia, it seems a new issue has emerged, for which Viva Equip Projects is not the solution but in fact the cause: the projects are getting too popular!

Local projects which have undergone the training have seen such a noticeable improvement in the quality of care they offer, that they have now reached capacity and are struggling to take in any more children. “Projects here used to have problems where children would run away and go back to the streets, they were so used to their old way of life” says local Viva Equip co-ordinator Henry Pers Lopez. “But now the care in the projects is so good that the children are no longer running away, and it actually means that the organisations are getting so full!”

Many of the projects in the La Paz network are either schools or transition homes that are preparing children to be re-integrated into their families, fostered or adopted, and so they are a vital help and support to their neighbourhoods. While it is a very positive step that their standards of care have been so tangibly improved, it highlights the need to ensure that as many organisations as possible have the chance to develop the quality of the care they offer.

Henry reports that the network has now begun referring children to government institutions and other organisations outside the network, as member projects simply have no more room: “We always make sure children are going to a place that can give them the best care possible, even when those places are not part of the network. But we know that organisations are stronger when they are part of a team, and when they have been given proper standards. So we are just wanting to do Viva Equip Projects more and more. We are hopeful one day this will not be a problem because every organisation in the country working with children will have done the training!”


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