In education Zharick found the road to her dreams

Eighteen-year-old Zharick's days are like a race against time. At six in the morning, she gets up to prepare breakfast for her mother and younger brother. When they leave for work and school, Zharick cleans the house and gets her one-year-old daughter Arleth ready. Together they go to the Center for Development and Self-management (DYA) in Monte Sinaí, which is located in Guayaquil, Ecuador's main port city. There at DYA, which more than six months ago became their second home, is where the Educational Inclusion Programme for pregnant and parenting adolescents operates.

This programme is a UNICEF Ecuador initiative that provides support to girls who have dropped out of school so that they can reintegrate into the educational system. When Zharick heard about this programme, she was at a crossroads. She had applied at her high school for the assisted classes modality, in which the teachers give the students the learning material so that they can study at home. But for her it was very difficult to keep up with the pace.

Although Zharick wanted to learn, she was overcome with despair. She felt alone, lacking the support of a partner or family members. She also had no one to leave her daughter with, no money to buy school supplies, and no time to catch up on homework or prepare for exams.

One afternoon, sitting outside the bathroom at her high school, while thinking about whether it would be best to give up studying, one of her friends told her about UNICEF's Educational Inclusion Programme. Zharick contacted Professor Francisco Salazar, the project's school support tutor, and went to see the center. Her doubts were dispelled. She was excited to know that they would help her reinforce what she had not understood in classes, that they would provide psycho-emotional support, nutritional counseling and medical care for her and her baby. In addition, she identified with other girls her age who were going through a similar situation.

"At first I felt weird, I thought I wasn't going to be accepted or that they would judge me. I realized that wasn't the case and kept attending. Later on I felt peace, I could express myself, I was in a family that doesn´t let you go and stays united," she says, while playing with her little girl.

Zharick is one of 301 young women benefiting from this project, which is being carried out in highly vulnerable areas in Monte Sinaí, Machala and Tulcán. Among them, 31 are Venezuelan. Thanks to this initiative, she is in her last year of high school and will soon obtain her diploma.

Every morning Zharick goes to the programme. She arrives at 08:00 and begins to do her homework and get help with any questions she has. Meanwhile, little Arleth stays with other children in the care of Deyaneira Navarrete. She is the nursery school teacher in charge of the childcare area, a bright space with white walls and colorful toys. There are also cribs, a diaper changing table and a rocking chair where the young women sit to breastfeed their children.

At 10:00, after finishing her homework, Zharick returns home with her daughter. She prepares lunch, puts on her uniform and puts her notebooks in her backpack. She then feeds and bathes Arleth in order to leave her with her grandparents. She hurries, because she has to be at school by 12:45. When she gets out of classes, at 6:15 p.m., she picks her daughter up again to return home together to play and rest.

The importance of comprehensive care

Like Zharick, thousands of girls face premature motherhood. In Ecuador, in 2022, every day, 104 adolescents between 15 and 19 years old gave birth. The causes behind this figure are multiple: lack of opportunities, scarcity of information on sexual and reproductive health, pressures from the social environment or, in many cases, sexual violence.

For María Fernanda Porras, UNICEF Education Officer, teenage pregnancy is a serious problem in the country, not only because it is the second cause of school dropout among young women, but also because it has consequences on their physical, psychological and emotional health. This is especially true when they live in precarious conditions such as those in Monte Sinaí, the largest irregular settlement in Guayaquil, where health, education and child development services are almost non-existent for more than 240,000 people.

In this context, the UNICEF programme was developed as an alternative to help young women recover the learning they lost due to pregnancy or caring for their children. "It is an educational model that takes into account all the needs of pregnant adolescents," says the specialist.

This approach has been key for Zharick to continue studying. Previously, she had to deal with a lack of empathy from some of the school's teachers. That is one of the obstacles that, according to Francisco Salazar, a teacher in the programme, pregnant teenagers face in the educational system. The girls, he says, feel pushed to abandon their studies because of the discrimination they suffer from classmates or teachers.

"The job of teaching implies an additional effort. It revolves around the complexity of the person with whom a teaching-learning process is being carried out," Francisco says with conviction.

He, in addition to explaining geometry, algebra or the correct conjugation of verbs, motivates the teenage girls not to give up. "What has really moved me are the circumstances in which these girls are making progress... That joy of going back to school in the face of difficulties," he says proudly.

Zharick is an example of the positive impact of inclusive education. She feels that, unlike her high school, at the programme they listen to her and they understand her situation. Mariela Lara, the project's psychologist, highlights Zharick's evolution: "At the beginning she was an introverted girl, quiet, even somewhat angry. As the days went by and through group meetings, she became more confident and we were able to get to know her history and understand her reactions. Now she speaks out about her rights and has become a spokesperson and advocate for other girls".

"Before I felt that I was not going to achieve what I wanted, but coming to this UNICEF organization they gave me encouragement, a will to keep fighting and continue with my studies, because I know that I have to give a better future to my daughter," says Zharick.

She never imagined having to face the challenge of being a mother at the age of 16. Today her little Arleth motivates her to continue studying to fulfill her dream of becoming a child defense lawyer.