29 August 2006
U.S. Supports Day Care Centers for Refugees in Costa Rica
Centers in Costa Rican capital are run by refugees for refugees
Washington -- The United States has provided about $13,000 in financial support for the start-up of several day care centers in Costa Rica that give children of refugee families a safe place to stay while their parents work.
With financial support from a State Department program called the Ambassadors' Fund for Refugees, the facilities in the metropolitan region of Costa Rica's capital of San Jose offer both child care and job opportunities for parents.
The day care centers provide an English "learning station" and computer training for the refugee families, about 90 percent of whom are from Colombia, said Andy Prater, a human rights and labor officer for the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica. But refugee children from other countries also are welcomed at the day care facilities, he emphasized.
The Ambassadors' Fund, begun in 2000, derives from the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration and is designed to provide ambassadors at U.S. embassies "the means to respond quickly to critical, low-cost gaps in refugee assistance and protection."
One day-care center is now operational in the San Jose metropolitan area, and the hope is to open two other centers in the same region "very soon," said Prater in an August 29 interview with the Washington File.
The first center was inaugurated May 18, Prater said. The centers are to be located in those areas of San Jose where there are high concentrations of refugees.
Prater said day care providers at the Costa Rican centers are carefully tested and evaluated to determine their suitability to care for children. Some of the day care providers are themselves refugees, said Prater.
The United States sees the centers becoming self-funding following the initial $13,000 "start-up" investment in the program. No additional U.S. financial support should be necessary to keep the program running, Prater said, adding that a small fee is charged the refugee families, most of whom are poor, for the day care service and training. The U.S. role in the centers, Prater said, has more to do with funding and "overseeing that the money is being spent properly," not in creating the rules for how the facilities are run.
Prater said administration and day-to-day operation of the centers is run by a San Jose-based group called the Asociación de Consultores y Asesores Internacionales (ACAI). The ACAI serves as the "implementing partner" for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in operating the day care centers.
That U.N. refugee office said in an August 25 feature story on its Web site that in the face of a growing refugee population in Costa Rica, the office faced a "severe shortage of funds" and was "unable to pay" for the opening of the first day care center in May. But "fortunately, the U.S. embassy [in Costa Rica] stepped into the breach" and agreed to help finance the program, said the U.N. office.
Prater said that when the U.N. office contacted the U.S. Embassy, "we were happy to help and play a part in making affordable child care become a reality for refugees in Costa Rica."
Some 8-10 children are enrolled at each of the day care centers, said Prater.
The United Nation says Costa Rica has a long tradition of refugee protection, adding that the country hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Latin America. The United Nations said that officially, more than 13,000 refugees are in Costa Rica, mostly from Colombia.
The United Nations quoted one female refugee from Colombia who said she finds great personal satisfaction working as a day care provider in San Jose, after four years when she could not find work and her husband did odd jobs to help the family survive.
"This is what I was born" to do, she said. "Now I am a mother of two teenagers with many more children to take care of. It is a way of showing solidarity with fellow refugees -- but also with Costa Rican mothers, who have welcomed us since the first and grayest days of our stay" in the country.
More on the Costa Rican day care program is available on the Web sites of, the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica, and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
More information on the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is available on the State Department Web site.
For more on U.S. policy in the region, see Central America.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
