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Show 137 The other examples cited by the author refer to the several attempts made in some zones of the Continent to improve native housing as well as to organize youth clubs in various communities. The conclusion reached by the author is that it is not sufficient that the directors of a project consider that the changes to be introduced are going to be beneficial. It is indispensable to understand the mentality of the people, to adequately study the functions of those elements which they plan to modify, and above all, to succeed in persuading the members of the community to accept the modification introduced and to consider it as workable and worthwhile for themselves. Comas, Juan. "Modalidades del Abandono en las Colectividades Indigenas," America Indigena, XX No. 2 (April, 1960), pp. 83-88. English Summary: This study was presented before the XL Pan-American Congress of the Child (Bogota, Colombia, November, 1959), by Dr. Juan Comas, who attended as representative of the Inter-American Indian Institute. The author, after mentioning the extent of the Indian problem in general and, in particular in those countries where the native population represents a large percentage of the total, takes up concretely the subject of the abandonment, with its special characteristics, suffered by the Indian children of the Continent. Among the causes which explain this abandonment, considering specifically the Indian children, are mentioned the absence, in these zones, of doctors and nurses; the lack of adaptation to and knowledge of the environment and culture when work, usually sporadic in character, is carried out among them; the frequent scarcity of schools and boarding schools in which attention can be given to the special problems of native children, etc. Special emphasis is placed by the author on the necessity of always considering the cultural factor in any work which is being carried out to benefit the Indian children. In his conclusions, he proposes that the XI Pan-American Congress of Children consider as urgent the solution of this problem and recognize that essentially unilateral measures are ineffective and should be substituted by integral planning. To achieve this, he suggests a closer and more direct collaboration between the Pan-American Institute of the Child and the I.I.I. Buitron, Anibal. "Problemas Economico-Sociales de la Educacion en la America Latina," America Indigena, XX No. 3 (July, 1960), pp. 167- 172. English Summary: This article shows why the problem of illiteracy is not the exclusive domain of education and the educators, but that it is very closely related to the great economic and social problems; that is, illiteracy is not remedied simply by increasing |
