CHILDREN'S CENTERS
OUR LOCATIONS
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Open Arms is dedicated to finding a solution to the brokenness of families. We are dedicated to keeping families together and preventing child abandonment. We are a preventive ministry trying to create a nationwide daycare movement in Mexico. We want to proactively help children before they are at risk of being put into an orphanage, abused, or neglected and left to fend for themselves.
Many parents in the United States can relate to the difficulty of finding reputable childcare. In Mexico, working parents have even fewer options. Most households can only be completely self-supported if both parents work. This leaves single mothers at an incredible disadvantage: they have no other option than to work outside of their home. The Mexican infrastructure does not provide a viable resource for public childcare. Without a source of affordable care, working parents are given no choice but to leave their children at home to fend for themselves during the day. Many children are locked inside their homes at the risk of burning them down, or they roam the streets, where they run a high risk of becoming victims of predators or getting involved in drugs and violence.
The other unthinkable option parents are left with is to voluntarily drop their children off at an orphanage. Many Mexican children end up in orphanages because their parents have nowhere else to send their children while they work. Orphanages in today’s Mexico function as daycares, but ones where the parents never come back for their kids. Four out of five children in orphanages have at least one living parent who is simply unable to financially care for them.
At Open Arms, we provide a safe refuge during the day for the most at-risk children and families in the form of a no-cost daycare. Our heart is not only to provide solutions to the symptomatic problems born of the system here in Mexico, but to fight for the entirety of the family unit. We provide care and assistance that extend beyond basic childcare to our families. We are not the type of daycare center you would typically find in the United States. For over 165 kids, Open Arms is a home away from home. Our care gives these children the vital gift of growing up with their families. Mothers and fathers no longer need to leave their kids home alone or be faced with the gut-wrenching decision of relinquishing them to an orphanage.
The care that we provide goes beyond that of basic childcare. We host visiting doctors and dentists to give no-cost medical and dental care to the community. We have full-time psychologists on staff who assist our children and families in their deep emotional and spiritual healing. We are currently working on having an on-site Open Arms Church at all of our campuses to provide a safe, strong, Jesus-centered community for our families and towns. Everything we do is to tend to the physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental needs of our daycare children, their families, and other members of the community. The goal of our daycare is to use the teachings and example of Jesus Christ to foster a productive lifestyle and overall wellbeing, while supporting the family unit.
Once a month, we offer meetings and parenting classes, led by our psychologists, campus directors, or mission teams. These meetings provide useful resources for the parents of the children in our care. The goals of these classes are to teach the parents good life skills and to encourage healthy disciplines and lifestyle choices. We coach them in breaking the cycle of poverty in their lives and advise them in Biblical authority. We emphasize spiritual, physical, and emotional growth in an attempt to prevent the next generation from suffering through the same challenges as their parents. We hope and pray that the kids we care for and influence grow up to be world-changers!
