A single mother

Camino Nuevo’s Burlington middle school campus is around the corner from where Blanca Ruiz works long hours at a nail salon.


Since she came here from Mexico years ago, she often felt she was barely keeping it together. She was sharing an apartment with her two kids and several roommates. Sometimes the stress would overwhelm her kids.


“I’m a single mother who came here with very low self-esteem, very unfocused, and with severe economic problems,” she said in Spanish. “If I was insecure, my kids would feel the same way.”


Her son Luis acted out. He got bad grades. He refused to do what his mom said and that enraged her.


“She screams because I don’t want to listen to her,” he said.
In class, sometimes Luis would stare off at his desk, checked out; other times he’d become disruptive, start talking, get up and walk around. He expressed no interest in learning and made it difficult for other students in class to stay on task.


“Sometimes I forgot, or sometimes I would decide not to do my work,” he said flatly.


In fifth grade, he was sent to the principal’s office for ignoring his teacher’s instructions. The principal suspended him from school.

Tackling hunger stitch by stitch

Our craft group started as an excuse to drink wine and hang out, but we have had many achievements: Lucy knitted her first scarf, Anja made beautiful monochrome slippers, Kris taught us how to crochet, and we contributed to ending world hunger.
Jigsaw warriors
As caring, social-justice-seeking, change-the world types, the imapiece project, which supports Save the Children’s Race Against Hunger campaign, was right up our alley.
We all got into making the jigsaw pieces, chatting about the slogans we chose and talking about what a world free of hunger and injustice would look like.
It was a perfect project for a craft night as the jigsaw pieces were so quick and easy to finish.

The jigsaw pieces raise awareness of the Race Against Hunger campaign

Taking it to the top
None of us had ever met our MP, but we decided we really wanted to share our passion for the imapiece campaign with the person responsible for representing us in parliament.
Having worked out who that person was (!), we sent an email to Meg Hiller requesting a meeting to give her the jigsaw pieces we had made.
Meeting our MP
One morning before work, Sarah, Lucy and I went along to Hackney town hall, jigsaw pieces in hand, ready to meet our MP and urge her to support the Race Against Hunger campaign.
I’ll admit I was a bit nervous; I was worried I wouldn’t know what to say, or that Meg might ask us a question we didn’t have the answer to, or point out how amateur our stitching was!
But it was a great meeting, Meg loved the jigsaw pieces and it turns out she’s an avid crafter herself.

Laura (on the left) and friend take their jigsaw pieces to meet their MP

She was super down to earth, and having craft in common made it easy to chat and relate to each other.
Global connections
We discussed why we loved living in a multi-cultural community, the vibrant celebrations, the variety of food, the availability of beautiful fabrics and the constant connect to the rest of the world.
Living in Hackney means we cannot ignore global problems: a hungry child anywhere effects us all, our neighbours, our friends and our families.
What a result!
Meg agreed to write to David Cameron asking him to ensure that at the G8 hunger summit this year the voice of our community is heard and leaders commit to ending world hunger.
The meeting gave us such a buzz! We felt a real sense of accomplishment.
Meg seemed to enjoy the meeting too.

Laura and pals meet their MP, Meg Hillier

She said: “Even in an area of deprivation like Hackney, we know there are bigger challenges around the world. It’s important that we press our leaders to act against hunger globally.”

Engaged and empowered

Since then Meg has kept us informed about her correspondence with David Cameron.
We all felt that engaging in political processes in a personal way is really empowering.
Turns out our craft nights are not just a good excuse for drinking wine, they also tackle global injustice!
Sign Save the Children’s petition urging David Cameron to use the G8 summit to tackle the issue of world hunger and save millions of children’s lives.

Written off?

Written off?


Rather than write him off, the staff at Camino Nuevo got him to meet with a mental health counselor at the school. He also received tutoring everyday to catch up in math.


His mom went to the school’s group sessions for parents.
“I think it helped me because if you want to help your kid, you have to be emotionally stable, a clear mind and more positive,” she said.
Since she started counseling at the school, Ruiz lost fifty pounds and saved money to buy a reliable car.


Last year, Ruiz moved her kids 15 miles east to a house in El Monte with a tiny porch and big lemon tree. But there was no way she was changing schools.


She still drives Luis to Camino Nuevo in MacArthur Park every day on her way to work. Sometimes she’ll bring him a special treat of KFC for lunch.


A turnaround


Luis’s sixth grade teacher, Sarah Wechsler, keeps a close eye on him. She tracks even the smallest details, like how often she encourages him. She wants to make sure positive reinforcements far outpace stern talk.


Wechsler said in the last year, she’s seen Luis completely turn around and take ownership of his schoolwork.


“You want to be your own man, don’t you?” she said, smiling at Luis with encouragement.


Luis still has days where he feels unfocused, and Wechsler allows him to take breaks or move to another desk. On a recent school day, Luis chose the table facing a wall. Without distraction, he hunkered down to divide fractions.


As the school year was drawing to a close, evidence of Camino Nuevo’s work – and Luis’s - became evident in one unmistakable way: He finally reached grade level in math.


How does that make him feel?
“Proud,” he said.


CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Ana Ponce as a founder of Camino Nuevo and misstated its current number of campuses. KPCC regrets the errors.

Desperate demand for Ebola treatment in Sierra Leone as five new people infected every hour

The demand for treatment beds and nurses to halt the rapid spread of Ebola across Sierra Leone is far outstripping supply, according to Save the Children. 

An estimated 765 new cases were reported last week – a rate of five every hour - while there are only 327 beds in the country. The critical shortage comes as untold numbers of children are dying anonymously at home or in the streets, meaning the scale of the problem is massively unreported. 
Ebola is spreading across Sierra Leone at a terrifying rate, with the number of new cases being recorded doubling every few weeks. At the current rate, 10 people every hour will be infected with Ebola in the country before the end of October. Even as health authorities get on top of the outbreak in one area, it breaks out in another. In the Port Loko district, cases have risen five-fold in the last month. 

Even with the 700 new beds pledged by the UK government, unless the international community radically steps up its response people will continue to die at home, infecting their families and wider community. 

Save the Children’s country director in Sierra Leone, Rob MacGillivray, says: “We are facing the frightening prospect of an epidemic which is spreading like wildfire across Sierra Leone, with the number of new cases doubling every three weeks. Children, more than anyone, are suffering painful, anonymous and undignified deaths at home. It’s very difficult at this stage to even give accurate figures on the number of children who are dying from Ebola, as monitoring systems cannot keep pace with the outbreak.”

Save the Children is working with the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) and its Ministry of Defence to build and run a 100-bed treatment centre in Sierra Leone, as well as supporting an Interim Care Centre in Kailahun for children who have lost their families to Ebola. The organisation is pledging to raise and spend $70m (£43m) to stop the spread of the disease across the region, treat more patients and support children who have lost their parents. Save the Children is tackling Ebola in Liberia and Guinea too.

Jasmine Whitbread, CEO of Save the Children, says: “The UK government has taken the lead on supporting Sierra Leone to tackle this crisis, but it cannot act alone. The scale of the Ebola epidemic is devastating and growing every day, with five people infected every hour in Sierra Leone last week. We need a coordinated international response that ensures treatment centres are built and staffed immediately.

For more information, contact Krista Armstrong on +44 77 87 19 19 57 or krista.armstrong@savethechildren.org or call our 24 hour press line on: +44 7831 650409 (out of hours)

News from the World Health Assembly

Decision-making at a global level

I am currently in Geneva at the first day of the World Health Assembly, hoping to get a better understanding of what is involved in decision-making for health at a global level.
It’s been a fascinating day so far. In the huge Palais des Nations assembly hall, we saw representatives from the governments of the 194 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO). I was pleased that that in the initial addresses to the conference, mention was made of universal health coverage (UHC) and the vital importance of health workers in the framework for health after the Millennium Development Goals.

Meeting the UK Secretary of State for Health

Beth meets the UK Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt.

In the morning I had a brief meeting with the UK Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt MP, who is leading the UK delegation.
I told him about our group of Health Worker Campaigners and how passionate we are about improving global access to health workers.
It was great to hear that he is interested in UHC, and he promised to ensure it was included in his speech to the assembly in the afternoon.

Commitment to universal health coverage

After lunch, Dr Margaret Chan, the Director General of the WHO, gave a speech to a packed assembly hall.
I squashed into the NGO area to listen to her . She, too, stressed the importance of member states’ commitment to UHC to maximise health outcomes for all, irrespective of their ability to pay.
She highlighted the need for people to have access to healthcare without risking financial ruin, and that equity and justice in healthcare provision are vital for both development and social mobility.
It was good to hear her mention the need for commitment to the training and education of primary health care workers.

From speech to action 

Sitting in the assembly hall now listening to representatives from many countries, it’s refreshing to hear a commitment to the principles of UHC mentioned by so many.
I really hope that these statements are put into action. They must translate to training and support for health workers, so that poor countries are able to retain the most important aspect of any health service: the staff who deliver it.
Tonight, I am going to a meeting organised by the Global Health Workforce Alliance to hear about their plans for the Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in November. It’s a packed agenda – but so far, as interesting as it is worthwhile.

Tracking wellbeing

Camino Nuevo’s teachers are trained to track not just academic progress but also overall wellbeing. 

If academics slip, they offer reading or math tutoring. In the same way, when emotional or behavior issues bubble-up, a student is referred to a counselor to develop those equally vital emotional skills.

Most schools in L.A. Unified only provide counseling for the most serious mental disorders, targeting resources to the less than 1 percent of the student population – those diagnosed with a serious emotional disturbance. (Read more on this in the second part of our series.)

At Camino Nuevo, about one in four students receives one-on-one counseling or group interventions. They don’t just talk about their problems at home, but also learn how to process emotions and make better decisions.

“They need the place to  - you know – detox, so to speak. To let go. To get all this out, and to learn about themselves,” said Gloria Delacruz-Quiroz, head of mental health at Camino Nuevo.

Research shows that not all children who experience trauma will struggle emotionally. Those who feel they have support from an adult seem to do better.
Ninety-seven percent of students at Camino graduate high school, compared to 68 percent district-wide, where the rate slips even further for Latino and low-income students.

To pay for it, the school taps MediCal, California’s version of Medicaid.
The charter school created a system where its own staff works alongside private counseling service providers - including the Los Angeles Childhood Development Center and Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services – right at the schools.

The services aren’t free. Camino Nuevo scrapes together $1.6 million to cover what the providers cannot, plus a smattering of other services school leaders term their "continuum of care," which include not just counseling but things like after school programs and field trips.