Do you remember your childhood? I felt safe, cared for, and loved.
Evelyn Roron, a 28-year-old girl we spoke to this week, felt that way when she was six years old and wanted to feel that love.
At the age of six, he re-read the school edition of his favorite book, The Ghost of Canterville by Oscar Wilde. This is the story of a ghost who wants to be heard, seen, and loved, just like she was back then.
At that age, Evelyn was separated from her parents due to child neglect and placed in an orphanage. He says he read the book so he wouldn’t be surprised and not think about his harsh reality. She separated from her parents when she was five years old. And she spent 15 years in various institutions until she turned 20 and had to fend for herself.
This is Evelyn.
The state, the judge in charge of his case, did not consider helping the aunts live together or facilitating the adoption.
Like her, thousands of boys and girls are growing up in co-residential facilities in Argentina today. The law requires a stay of 180 days, but Evelyn spent 15 years there.
People who grow up in such environments carry tremendous emotional weight. “Boys and girls growing up in families always feel like no one in their family loves them or that they’ve done something wrong,” Evelyn confesses.
But Evelin, now a member of Gia Egreso, a group of young people who live at home until adulthood, did not continue to feel the pain. After experiencing repeated transfers that underlined the uprooting of her love, she realized that the responsibility did not lie with her or her family, but rather with the state. “Today I saw that the system wasn’t working for us. That system doesn’t necessarily have to separate us from our entire families and people we know.”
Their stories reflect what the nearly 9,000 institutionalized children and youth in this country are experiencing, and they ask us: “Are we doing enough to ensure that these children are not isolated?” Are we doing enough to ensure that these children grow as a family?
Evelyn managed to stay ahead of the curve. He is pursuing a degree in Management. I studied Business Administration at the Arturo Giorecce National University in Florencio Varela. And for five years, he has been working in human resources at Accenture. He rented an apartment in Quilmes, but the feeling of emptiness at that time persisted. “There are so many days when I need a hug from my mom to say, ‘You’re doing the right thing.’ I don’t know if I missed my family at some point.”.
Immerse yourself in Evelyn’s full story, her fight for autonomy, and her powerful voice to transform the care system in this note written by journalist Paula Sorrell.
have a great weekend
how do you do,
Xavier
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