Growing Up in the “Creches” of Curitiba, Brazil
HAVANA TIMES – In this city, if you are an immigrant, you will have priority over any Brazilian family when it comes to enrolling your children in daycare centers.
Here, the daycare centers are known as creches.
There are creches that charge because they are private, but there are also free ones, which are funded by the city government.
While private ones charge monthly fees over 1,000 reais (about 180 dollars, or two-thirds of a minimum wage), in the public ones parents not only pay nothing, but our children also receive breakfast, lunch and two snacks during the day, also covered by the city government.
Just by saying this much, it would already be enough to affirm that they clearly surpass Cuban daycare centers, where food is poor or nonexistent and there are testimonies of mistreatment and negligence.
More than once I managed to overhear “educators” shouting at children, hurling insults and using adult language in a daycare center very close to my old home in Havana.
In addition, a large part of Cuban daycare centers suffer from serious infrastructure problems: lack of water, broken or missing windows, and absent perimeter fences. It takes divine intervention to get a spot in one of them, and yet they are not even free, in the middle of an educational system that prides itself on being so.
In Curitiba, creches are not perfect, and often they ask parents for monetary donations or voluntary work to repair their furniture and facilities. But the treatment of the children is extremely careful. They receive personalized attention, not only based on their preferences and innate talents but also on the strengths and weaknesses of their behavior.
When I talk with a Brazilian educator, I can feel her love for our children and also perceive her vocation.
In the creche, my daughter not only acquires knowledge but also humanity. They teach them, for example, about the animal world, and to love even the insects that live alongside them in the play areas.
Last week my daughter surprised me by pointing out a bug she saw on the wall, saying: “Dad, look, it’s a Johaninha fedorenta,” which is the name it is known by here.
Thanks to the reports we receive from the teachers, we learn about certain aptitudes and attitudes that our daughter does not clearly show at home.
In Curitiba, the creche fulfills an extremely important social function, not only freeing up our time so we can work but also supporting the development of our children.
Read more here from the diary of Osmel Almaguer, a Cuban now living in Brazil.