Educational intervention for youth at-risk for HD

Factor-H and our staff and collaborators on the ground in Zulia State, Venezuela, continue their work to provide educational assistance for kids at-risk for Huntington's disease (HD). In 2022, we have conducted a house-by-house survey of families affected by HD, and identified clear needs and priorities for program implementation. Over 80% of all families we serve live in conditions of poverty or extreme poverty. 

This effort also identified clear educational gaps in young kids and teenagers, and therefore we renewed our educational efforts to provide basic education & literacy, as well as tailoring workshops for teenage kids to learn a trade.

The Workshop School Project which started in 2022, aims to standardize the knowledge of adolescents, between 13 and 17 years old,d not enrolled in school in Barranquitas and San Luis, with that corresponding to their chronological age to be reinserted or inserted into the official formal educational structure of Venezuela. The program offers training in trades that allow the adolescents alternatives to fishing, since their family requires them to be productive due to poverty levels. 

Our goal is to ensure adolescents can work and maintain a basic level of education. The inability to be educated and work would have rippling effects in their lives and their communities.  In an initial stage, the Trade Training Workshops have been activated for adolescents who are not in school. Among the active workshops currently initiated are the repair of outboard motorboats and macramé weaving; others, expected to begin as soon as funding is available include teaching how torepair of AC units and refrigerators, hairdressing and education about micro-businesses, in 2023. 

In addition to these training opportunities, which we aim to benefit 80 teenagers, we will continue with various psychological support activities for both teenagers and young kids. Factor-H recently hired an experienced psychologist as part of our staff on the ground, who has been organizing group therapy sessions for teenagers from HD families, as well as providing individual parent/child sessions as needed in the communities.