Day 2, July 6th: Make That Change!

I have been learning a lot about the social service agencies available in Costa Rica. On Tuesday, I attended a lecture by renown Costa Rican social worker, Laura Guzman. She has been a social worker since the 70´s and is currenlty a professor at The University of Costa Rica which houses the oldest school of social work in Latin America. She shared about the historical aspects of the development of social and economic policy in realtion to its effects today. Like the US, CR has a welfare programs to financially assist those in need who meet criteria. IMAS is an agency that helpes the poorest of the poor. A needs assessment is done and if one meets criteria, assitance is provided. One downfall, the assessment is a wee bit biased and some people may not recieive adequate servies. Notice I said poorest of the poor; kinda like SSI,SSD and GR, if you report that you have assessts, you will not get help. Another program available is child protctive services, PATH. There is no adult protective services, although there are several Hogar de Anicanos available for seniors, or as they call it here , Ancianos, literally transalated: ancient. These homes are similar to retirement homes.
Another similarity is that Ticos pay into and can collect social security AND have healthcare! Did I mention CR has univesal health care!!! The bad thing is....like in the US, no work, no Social Security..hopefully we still have it when my generation and younger need it!
On the same note, social workers are recongized as part of the government and has a strong National Association of Social Workers (NASW). All social workers are represented by NASW and must register with the orgnaization upon graduating. If not there are high penalities, even jail time. One major difference between social workers here and the US is the salary. Try living on a thousand dollars a month in the US! It is manageable here.....my host family, for instance, lives on one hundred dollars a month and they do not meet criteria for IMAS! Thank God for the survivors intinct.

Needless to say, the lecture was quite informitive and left me with the continued desire to be a change agent, better still, it reminded me that people are the change agents and social workers empower the people to make change!

until next time.....Pura Vida!