TIJUANA Starting Tuesday, a house used by drug traffickers for security will be used by at-risk children to play and study in a bright, healthy environment.
The second Boys and Girls Club is located on Ricardo Acevedo Street in colonia Camino Verde, a poor eastside neighborhood home to an estimated 40,000 people, the majority factory workers.
The federal government seized the property in 2007 from a criminal cell and donated it in October to the non-profit Club de Niños y Niñas de Tijuana.
Its a civil association affiliated with the U.S.-based organization that for 150 years has supported children and teens through low-cost recreational and educational activities.
The association is made up of businessmen and women who want to improve the quality of life for the citys children. Three years ago the group opened the citys first Boys and Girls Club, located in the east-side neighborhood of
Loma Dorada, which serves 450 children, most with parents who work in the maquiladora sector. It was the first such club in Latin America. Since then, the association has inspired business people in other Mexican cities to open or plan clubs in their home areas.
At the Loma Dorada club, youngsters spend the morning or afternoon playing sports, such as basketball, or doing homework in a library or computer room, among other activities, before or after school. They also receive advice on nutrition and health.
The Tijuana facilities are based in the successful prevention model used by the Boys and Girls Club of America to steer children away from drug abuse and crime.
The club being inaugurated Tuesday will initially serve 150 youngsters, according to Carlos Torres, the representative of the federal housing agency that donated the property, known as Sedesol.
Its in a barrio where residents built austere houses that cling precariously to the sides of canyons and which is plagued by violence, gangs, crime, family disintegration and drug abuse.
The housing agency has an assistance program in Camino Verde because of the high number of inmates in the prison in Tijuana, 258, came from that barrio. The program includes helping create recreational activities in the neighborhood, which also suffers from poor nutritional options.
oma.millan@sandiegored.com
[sidebar]Opening celebration
The second Boys and Girls Club in Tijuana will be inaugurated Tuesday morning at 10:30 at 3871 Calle Ricardo Acevedo, in the east-side colonia of Camino Verde. Carolina Bustamante de García, who is the president of the citys family agency known as DIF, will preside over the ceremony, which is to be attended by Torres, from the federal housing agency; Cuahutémoc Cardona, the states Secretary of Government, and Rosa Carmina Capuchino de Osuna, the wife of Baja Californias governor and president of the states family agency.
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