Metodología de evaluación de ofertas

Mapping girls’ life back home begins by exploring some of the structural constraints they encountered. That is, constraints that arose from external conditions within their environment. One area of structural constraints several girls discussed involved their education system and

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schools back home. School is typically a central context for adolescents, where they can develop important life skills and interests, both personally and socially. However, the constraints

participants experienced with their schools and education back home affected their opportunities for leisure in several ways. For instance, one participant did not learn a key skill at school, how to read, which meant she could not develop leisure interests that involved reading. Sanura explained how the education she received in Kenya, where she lived until she was fifteen, left her unable to read:

Education wasn’t good [back home]. You don’t understand a lot ‘cause your classes take only 35 minutes . . . There, the teachers are so rude. You don’t learn anything at all. You can’t even read, you can’t write . . . It doesn’t matter if you’re eighteen or if you’re in grade seven, they just mix up [different grades together] ‘cause there’s just a few classes in the school . . . I didn’t learn how to read, [but] I kept going [to school] . . . [because] I could just do class work. (Sanura)

Another way in which educational constraints could affect girls’ leisure was by limiting their access to school and thereby to potential personal and social benefits with leisure

implications, such as developing interests and making friends. Access to school could be limited, or prevented entirely, when school was an unsafe place. Amira discussed the unfairness and fear she experienced in the school system in Syria, where her family moved from Iraq when she was in grade two:

School [was bad]. [The] teacher was . . . allowed to hit people . . . like students . . . I was very surprised when I went to school and I saw that. I was in grade two when I went to Syria. I couldn’t go to school when I saw that. I stayed at home for one year. I lost a year . . . Lots of [students] . . . lost their year because they’re just afraid of the teacher. They couldn’t study . . . Like, teachers don’t listen to you. If [they] say, ‘Did you do your homework?’ they don’t listen, they just hit you or . . . send you home . . . Teachers [there] don’t respect students . . . [It’s] just the students [that] should respect teachers and

teachers can do whatever they want. (Amira)

While some girls’ experiences with school back home limited what they were able to learn, either because instruction was lacking or because they were too afraid to even attend, other

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girls described quite a different structural constraint related to education – a lack of free time, which was directly due to rigorous schools systems. For instance, Noora explained that she had very little free time for leisure in Syria, where she lived from age seven to thirteen, given the expectations for even elementary school students to have about seven hours of daily homework:

In Syria and Iraq, we used to study a lot. I had a lot of homework . . . like three times [the homework in Canada] . . . So we don’t have lots of time . . . And you don’t have time there for reading, or [to] enjoy yourself . . . [In a typical day], I wake up, go to school . . . from 7:30[am] to 2[pm] . . . When I get home, I just eat and go to my room and study. [I would] study [until] ten o’clock . . . [So from] three to ten . . . [That’s what students need to do] if they want to do [well in school] . . . [For] students [back home, schoolwork is] too much . . . [But,] that’s life. (Noora)

Hana shared a similar sentiment about the difficulty of school back home and the lack of free time for leisure that resulted:

[In Ethiopia,] school was really hard. What I used to learn in grade seven [back home], I finished in grade ten when I came here . . . So [back home], you don’t really have the time to actually hang out with your friends because it’s a lot of [studying] . . . So we didn’t have the time to actually have fun. (Hana)

Sanura conveyed how the structural constraint of a lacking educational system, described above, could lead to the interpersonal constraint of being teased and even shunned by others for not being able to read, which could clearly affect opportunities for developing friendships:

[Back home, in school,] some students don’t know [how] to read [like me] . . . I [saw] there [that] if you don’t know how to read, some people [are] teasing you. [They would say,] ‘You don’t know how to read. She’s so lazy, she’s not very educated.’ They don’t talk to [you]. But, when people help you, you can learn. But, if they do not help you, you don’t learn anything . . . [So] instead of helping you, they tease you. They’re like, ‘Don’t sit with her; she doesn’t know how to read. She will take your knowledge; don’t stay with her [and] don’t share anything with her.’ (Sanura)

Another significant area of structural constraints girls discussed was dangerous environments. The hazards, and frequently widespread lack of safety, many girls experienced back home had clear implications for leisure. Namely, that leisure was often severely constrained

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in terms of the freedom and sense of security that are necessary precursors to leisure. For

example, Sanura commented on the vigilance required to simply walk around outside, in order to avoid stepping on items which may be infected with HIV:

There [in Africa], people walk barefoot; [with] no shoes . . . [But, you need to] be careful of yourself [about] HIV . . . because maybe you will step on [something] and then spread a disease . . . You can get sick, like [through] the thing that [people] cut themselves [with], [razors], . . . or [through] injection things. So when you’re walking, [you need to] be careful [and] look at the floor ‘cause people use it and they just want to infect others; they don’t care. Instead of putting it away; they don’t care. (Sanura)

Most of the girls have survived a war, or even multiple wars, back home. They candidly described the often extreme lack of safety they and their families experienced:

In my country, [in Iraq], after the war, it was really unsafe. Like, they can just take you and that’s it. Like, your parents call and they say, ‘Give us a million dollars’ and we’ll give your daughter back. But, when you give them [the money], they just kill your daughter and give her to you. They were like, ‘We give [you] your daughter; she’s dead.’ . . . So this left something in us . . . Like, the school was in front of my home, but I can’t go by myself . . . it was not safe. Even with my father or mom, they can kill them in front of me . . . I saw lots of dead people in front of my eyes . . . I’m standing and there is a man [who] just got shot in front of me. I was in the school . . . That happened a lot . . . Even at home, you don’t feel safe. (Amira)

Back home, the safety is very bad . . . Baghdad and Syria now have really bad conditions and too many people are killed every day . . . Like, if you are working or something, if you are asking for rights or freedom, . . . they might fire you or kill you . . . If you say that the president is not a fair person, they kill you . . . And that’s what happened in Syria. [People were] just asking for their freedom, and the Assad just killed them . . . I escaped from Syria to [Canada], [but] I don’t know what happened to my friends. (Noora)

For some girls, their experiences of war not only impacted their safety during the time of war, but also sometimes had more lasting impacts, which involved their families being separated, either temporarily or for years. Since adolescents lives are largely influenced by their family, major changes or disruptions in their family structure would also likely impact their leisure. Murungi explained that she became separated from her mother during the Rwandan genocide, and ended up being raised by her grandmother:

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There was a war, so I got split with my mom . . . The [war] that happened in Rwanda, the genocide . . . So that happened and then my mom [and] I went separate ways . . . I’m not sure about [how] that [happened], all I know is [I ended up in] . . . my grandmother’s arms . . . I don’t know about my dad. (Murungi)

Amira described how her father needed to leave Iraq for Syria because his safety was in jeopardy, which left Amira’s mother alone with her and her younger sister:

My dad went to Syria because . . . they were after him . . . They were always watching him . . . sometimes the American soldiers and sometimes Iraqi . . . I don’t know [why] he was [being watched]. They just do that . . . After that, [they] will shoot you . . . [for] no reason . . . [So] he decided to go to Syria. But, we can’t go with him . . . [So] my mom was alone with [my sister and I]. My [grandparents] . . . were [also] in Iraq . . . [but] most of the time, we can’t go to see my grandpa and my grandma because of the [war] . . . My mother faced a hard time . . . She had to go shopping [and do everything by herself] . . . It was very hard for a woman in a war. (Amira)

Participants encountered significant structural constraints to leisure back home, including their education systems and dangerous environments. Educational constraints affected girls’ opportunities for leisure by impeding their development of skills, interests, and friendships, as well as limiting free time for leisure. Constraints related to dangerous environments restricted girls’ movements and their sense of security and freedom, which are central to experiencing leisure. While these structural constraints were likely also experienced by many other individuals in participants’ environments back home, they also faced unique constraints as girls.