“The home’s facilities can actually house up to 60 kids; regrettably, the violence in the city is making it very di!cult for us to operate to full capacity,” explains the institution co-founder and social activist Patricia Silis.

Some of the children at the home were simply abandoned by their parents because the latter could not a"ord to provide the specialized medical care that a child with special needs requires. In other cases, they were taken from the family home due to the severe physical abuse or neglect that they su"ered at the hands of their parents.

There are even kids that are classified as “foundlings,” because they were literally found on the streets and the DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia) authorities do not know the identity of their parents or if the child already has a name.
Others have been left orphaned due to the death of their parents. One can even find Tarahumara children with special needs, who have ended up being abandoned by their parents, because in Tarahumara culture, a child born with some type of disability or chronic illness is considered a curse upon the progenitors.

“The growing number of orphans with special needs and chronic illnesses in the state is alarming. We have a huge list of them just waiting to be taken in. Los Ojos de Dios is the only safe haven for these children in the state of Chihuahua.

“Unfortunately, we cannot take them all in at once, since even we do not have the economic resources to do so. These are lives that, meanwhile, are simply wasting away,” notes Silis.
The home also runs an adoption program in conjunction with the Chihuahua State O!ce of Children and Family Welfare (Procuraduría de la Defense del Menor y la Familia), which is the government agency that approves all adoptions of children under the wardship of the State.

So far, nine children from Los Ojos de Dios have been adopted, a definite record for the institution according to Silis. “With three biological children of our own, my wife and I had no intention of considering adoption, but after meeting the children at Los Ojos de Dios, my eyes were opened.
I had a spiritual encounter with God. As a result, our family is now praying so that the adoption process completes itself very soon, and we can bring our wonderful little girl home,” recounts Joel Tooley, an adopting parent from the United States.

Some of the children’s medical conditions and disabilities include microcephaly, macrocephaly, mental retardation, autism, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), hypoglycemia, hepatitis, various types of physical disabilities and Down Syndrome.

All children housed at this institution receive specialized medical care from pediatricians and other medical specialists, as well as rehabilitative, physical, psychological, and language therapies, including a school education that uses the Montessori Method of teaching.

When a child first arrives, a general pediatrician carries out a complete medical examination. If a child has been previously diagnosed with a permanent neurological or physical disability, or a chronic illness, he or she is referred to the appropriate medical specialist who either confirms this previous diagnosis or refutes it.

If the previous diagnosisis confirmed, the specialist designs a treatment plan and provides a future prognosis for the child. Additionally, a sta" psychologist carries out a thorough psychological assessment in order to determine the child’s needs in terms of psychological and language therapies.

Psychotherapy is no less important, since it tries to undo all the emotional and behavioral harm that has been caused by the neglect, abandonment and/or physical abuse that most of these kids have already experienced in their short lives.

The Montessori Method is a teaching method that allows children to use all their senses in order to learn, know, explore, and experience everything in their environment. It prepares them to confront daily life. It also covers all traditional school subjects, from reading to mathematics.




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ARTHUR SALAZAR
The News

Located in an industrial park in southeast Ciudad Juárez, Los Ojos de Dios, A.C. (The Eyes of God), is the first, and currently the only, children’s home in the state of Chihuahua that houses abandoned children with special needs and chronic illnesses.

It is also the first and only institution of its kind in all of Mexico and possibly Latin America whose facilities operate following an ecological and self-sustaining model.

The home was founded by social activists Patricia Silis and Gerardo Rivera-Rodríguez, who sought to establish an institution where abandoned special needs children could live and receive specialized medical care and a school education.

“We wanted to help those most vulnerable and less fortunate in Ciudad Juárez. When a feature story appeared in the city’s daily, which indicated that every day, a child was abandoned in Ciudad Juárez, Patricia called me and asked what we could do to prevent it, and that’s when we decided to create this institution.

“Los Ojos de Dios has brought great happiness to our lives. We are completely committed to this project ... The name comes from the idea that if humanity were to look at children like God our creator does, then all those atrocities that are committed against them (children) all over the world would simply not occur,” explains Rivera.

This nonprofit organization officially opened its doors in November 2008 after a period of six long and arduous years of research, planning and raising the necessary funds in Mexico and the United States in order to begin and conclude the first stage of construction. The home also has an administrative branch o!ce in El Paso, Texas.

Nonetheless, the home still continues to raise funds. If it stopped doing so, it could not complete the remaining stages of construction or, for that matter, continue to operate.

Rivera, a native of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, received official recognition in March 2009 from the commonwealth’s First Lady for his altruistic work in Ciudad Juárez.

There is even interest on the island in opening an ecological and self-sustainable children’s home modeled after Los Ojos de Dios. All the minors housed at this institution are wards of the State or, more specifically, of the Chihuahua State and Ciudad Juárez Municipal DIF agencies (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia) and the Ciudad Juárez branch of the Chihuahua State O!ce of Children and Family Welfare (Procuraduría de la Defensa del Menor y la Familia).

Before Los Ojos de Dios opened its doors, there existed no place – privately or government operated – in Ciudad Juárez nor anywhere else in the state of Chihuahua that possessed the necessary infrastructure, personnel, and resources needed to house and treat abandoned children with special needs or chronic illnesses.
These children were either sent to Mexico City, where many specialized facilities for such children can be found, or were simply housed in pre-existing local homes.

Unfortunately, the care that they received in these non-specialized institutions was neither always adequate nor su!cient, as most of these homes were not designed with the special needs of these children in mind. These institutions could not provide the specialized medical care that a special needs or chronically ill minor requires.
With the opening of Los Ojos de Dios, the Ciudad Juárez Municipal DIF and the Chihuahua State O!ce of Child and Family Welfare hope that those children housed in Mexico City will now be able to return to the state of Chihuahua.

“It is a matter of great pride and a real privilege to have a home like Los Ojos de Dios here in Chihuahua,” said Claudia Sierra-Rentería, Head of the Ciudad Juárez branch of the Chihuahua State O!ce of Children and Family Welfare.

“We truly had an enormous need for such a home here in the state, because a lot of specialneeds children continue going under the wardship of the DIF. Many of them, unfortunately,are simply abandoned by their parents because they do not have the economic resources needed to care and provide for a child with a permanent disability or medical condition. I am very fortunate and grateful to be able to count on Los Ojos de Dios to house and care for these children.”




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ARTHUR SALAZAR
The News