Sophia Project

by Carol Cole and Robert McDermott

December 18, 2013 – second of three essays

The previous essay on the Sophia Project in being human, (1) appropriately included in the ,initiative!' section, describes the structures through which, over the past 13 years, Sophia Project has “brought deep and remarkable transformation to 50 families and 140 children.” A dramatically successful story, “the Sophia Project required unfailing dedication, a profound ideal of a live-in community, an equally profound approach to early childhood education and transformation specifically adapted for inner-city children, Camphill ideals of community, and a loyal network of donors and supporters.” The children and their mothers who had been homeless and had suffered from toxic levels of stress, alienation, poverty, fear, and violence are now well. “To date not one of these families has returned to homelessness, all but one of the mothers are employed and live with their children in their own apartments, and all of the children are performing successfully in school.”

The present essay, the second of three on Sophia Project, is focused on the work with the children, ages birth to five, in the daily programs. The final essay will focus on the work with the mothers, all of whom participated in the daily programs, and will describe the family support program which serves the children and mothers after completion of the 3-year daily program.

The mothers who have brought their children to Sophia Project were struggling to hold together their own lives and the lives of their children who have been homeless and have been repeatedly moved from place to place, always feeling that they do not belong anywhere. Having witnessed or experienced violence and abuse, they live in constant fear. Their lives are chaotic and their experiences fragmented beyond the point at which it is possible to make ordered impressions of their environment. Their relationships to people, nature, color, and story are wounded or non-existent.

When such negative circumstances persist (as they typically do in similarly dire circumstances), children inevitably build their lives on a broken, unreliable foundation. It should come as no surprise if, as an adult, they would be unable to relate with respect or kindness to others, care for the environment, imagine and envision a fulfilling life, or take the necessary steps to attain life goals. If no experiences transform the child’s pain, alienation, and fear, these will seep like a poison into his or her later life, often preventing positive experiences. In time, adults who have experienced such a painful childhood will perhaps self-medicate in order to feel something/ anything or to lessen their pain. As chemical toxins prevent a plant from healthy growth, destruction of early childhood, when children are to build their earthly and spiritual substance for later life, will ensure that adversarial forces will exercise negative influence.

At Sophia Project the children were met first with a garden of colorful flowers, plentiful enough for everyone to pick. This made a deep impression upon children who were accustomed to the gray and grime of their apartment buildings. Although Sophia House was located within their troubled neighborhood, their new play area was entwined with sweetly scented flowering vines. (2) The house was brightly painted and the door easily opened into a welcoming warm, harmonious, light-filled room of toys, beautiful children’s books, and artistic activities.

Through a curriculum that fosters kindness, rhythm, play, imagination, imitation, and loving relationships to all the kingdoms of nature and to the arts, each child has been able to develop healthy physical, emotional, social, and mental capacities.

Where they had experienced fragmentation they found wholeness; where they had experienced chaos they found order, harmony, and predictable rhythm; where they had experienced fear they found safety and love; where they had experienced harshness and violence they found gentleness and kindness. And where they had experienced alienation they found positive relationship to song, color, form, story, earth, stars, moon, sun, as well as healing relationships to people.

Meeting Individual Needs

Waldorf and Camphill early childhood programs worldwide work, as we did, with the seasons, festivals, and health-giving daily and weekly rhythms of inside and outdoor play, circle time stories, eurythmy, simple artistic activity, and handwork.

Some aspects of the program were unique to Sophia Project. Children and families were a part of daily programs for approximately three years. After three years of receiving intensive services the children and families were more stable and self-sufficient. At that point they became part of the family support program, which includes overnight respite care, and weekend programs.

Especially in the first year, when they were beginning to emerge from homelessness and had few, if any resources, families needed a lot of support. During the weekdays, the children were with us from as early as 5am until 6pm. Children in the daily programs sometimes required overnight weekend programs and emergency care in response to urgent situations such as domestic violence, hospitalization of one of our mothers, an unexpected night shift at a new job, or myriad other circumstances in which other families would rely on a partner, extended family, friends, or others in the community. For our families we were their extended family; typically there wasn’t anyone else.

Weekdays also included a before and after school program for the older siblings of children in the early childhood program as well as for all the children who had graduated from our early childhood program and had begun attending public school kindergarten.

Because it is expensive and difficult, transportation to and from work, daycare, and school is a major obstacle for low-income families. For many of our families commuting any distance is simply impossible. We provided regular transportation for many children and emergency transportation whenever needed. We regularly met a mother and the children at the bus and train stops in order to take the children to the program and enable the mother to continue her journey to work without the added hour needed to get back and forth from Sophia House.

Most of the families in the daily programs faced food shortages at home. The children received a full cooked breakfast, lunch, and several substantial snacks each day including a late snack in which the mothers would join before taking the child, or children, home. The main meal of the day for the children and coworkers was at lunch when we had a full dinner. Change of clothes, outside clothes, slippers, and boots were provided to all children in the program. The children took great delight in their individual cubby spaces where their clothes and nap blankets were kept.

Because most of our parents read either not at all or minimally, the children were at a high risk of illiteracy. Usually the children’s homes did not contain a single book. The Sophia classrooms had many good quality books. The teachers and interns told the children stories and often read to them.

Our children lived in dangerous neighborhoods. Their dream life was full of violent images and nightmares. Many of the children were afraid to go to sleep at night and even, initially, at naptime. Eventually, naptime at Sophia Project became a comforting time. Each child had his or her own nap cot (or crib for the Myrtle House children). Each child had his or her own blanket and a handmade quilt which they took with them when they left the daily program. Each was read a story and had their back gently rubbed as they drifted off to sleep to the sound of singing or the lyre. Every coworker was needed at naptime!

All programs were created to meet the specific needs of each child. The infants and toddlers, for example, each had their own individualized rhythm. While usually participating in some part of the day in a small group, each infant and toddler had both a primary and secondary caregiver to ensure protection of their privacy and consistent, sustained relationships, vital to healthy early development.

The children were very generous with one another. At a birthday celebration they delighted in choosing a gift to give to their friend and clapped enthusiastically as each gift was opened. As the program nurtured their inner and outer being, each one came more fully to life. Hesitantly at first, and then with great enthusiasm, they began to experience nature and use their imagination for deep and wonderful play. Each child found their way into the joy of life in unique ways. It was the work of the teachers and all the coworkers to assist them in finding their way and supporting their development. By drawing upon the curative work and the deep aspects of the early childhood work, and by long hours of study, reading, meeting, and contemplative work, the staff developed an understanding of each child and a plan for his or her development. By the time the children left the daily program they had acquired age appropriate development and were enthusiastically engaged with life and, as attested to by many teachers and neighbors, truly able to bring light and joy into their new environments.

Myrtle House

The infant toddler program serves children from birth to three years old and takes place at Myrtle House, from 6am-6pm, Monday through Friday. When the children first join us, the trauma they have experienced is often expressed through numbed passivity or a painful silence. Their trauma typically stems from frequent moving from place to place, an extremely stressed mother, broken rhythms of sleeping, eating and playing, poor nutrition, and exposure to violence. Each child is warmed inwardly and outwardly, and each child comes back to life. Monica, now two, was very somber both at home and with us, but now, slowly, she is changing. As her life be-comes more predictable and full of warmth we see her smile many times a day—and what a smile it is! Monica’s smile brightens her entire face and sends sunshine deep into the hearts of everyone around her. - From the Newsletter 2006

Sophia House

One of the privileges of working with small children is the gift of witnessing the wisdom the young child embodies, as in the following story.

On a recent morning Sarah placed several stuffed animals in a semicircle on the floor in front of her. She looked at each one tenderly. Then, looking at one older dog whose head flops due to many years of being carried around by his neck, she said quietly to herself, “This one is poor. I love all of these but I am going to love this one a little bit more and then he won’t be poor.”

Sarah knows what is needed to bring healing to both outer and inner poverty. At some level she knows that those who have been wounded can be healed by love. Through the deep care our children and mothers experience while at Sophia Project, they build the inner and outer resources necessary to face the challenges in their lives and to transform themselves and the world in which they live. For Sarah, this has been achieved through two years of intensive therapeutic education and care in the daily programs. Before coming to us, she lived, for almost two years, in a car with her mother and four siblings. - From the Spring 2009 newsletter

The Neighborhood Children

From the beginning the neighborhood children have been a part of Sophia Project. They come to play inside and outside on weekends and on as many evenings as we have the strength to watch them and play with them. They love to pick a small bunch of flowers from the garden, learn to make a puppet, paint, or just play with the “cool” toys. — One day the eight-year-old boy who lives next door was on our step. “My mom told me to come over here so I could be safe.” We went next door to see what was happening. No one was home so we returned to our house. Hours later he saw his dad walking down the street and he ran to him. His dad listened to his son, looked up at us, and gave us a world-weary wave. The child’s mother has not returned. Understandably, the child does not smile very often now. So it is great to see him beaming when he comes over to build things with his favorite big pal Paul, one of our interns. — One afternoon, as we were leaving, a little girl came to the gate from across the street. “When you come home can we do that thing when everyone sits at the table real quiet and sings and we all get a cup and napkin?” That “thing” is snack time. Her little face is so hopeful. It is little enough to ask. — We wish to thank you for making it possible to say yes to so many faces filled with hope, so many faces with a trace of hope beginning to return. - From the 2002 newsletter

Carol Cole (carolfrancescole@gmail.com) co-founded and directs Sophia Project. Robert McDermott (rmcdermott@ciis.edu) is board chair of Sophia Project and president emeritus of the California Institute for Integral Studies.

1 “Sophia Project,” 'being human', Autumn 2013

2 The gardens were made lush through devoted care and biodynamic preparations.