JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – UNICEF is expanding its presence in Juarez.

The United Nations’ children’s agency is providing tablets and facilitators so that young migrants and other disenfranchised minors don’t miss out on educational opportunities. The initiative is part of efforts to bring international assistance to a Mexican border city with unique challenges stemming from continuous migration from the interior of Mexico and other parts of the world.

“We have a number of initiatives that we are working here in Ciudad Juarez that benefit migrant children,” said Ignacio Lopez, head of the UNICEF office in Juarez. “We have a health and nutrition project, a mobile medical unit that visits different shelters to offer basic healthcare services to children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating mothers. We also have a number of educational projects.”

UNICEF has been operating in Juarez since 2022. On Tuesday, the agency’s adjunct director for Mexico, Maki Mato, was here to sign a memorandum of understanding with Juarez’s DIF children’s agency pledging support for vulnerable youth.

Agency officials delivered 70 tablets (with earphones and chargers) to DIF and pledged to train 20 local facilitators for a remote learning program. The curriculum is heavy on basic subjects and English – which benefits those whose goal is to live in the U.S. and Mexican children who at some point will have to deal with English speakers on the border.

The agency for the past year has been collaborating with the Nohemi Alvarez Quillay migrant children’s shelter in Juarez and is starting to do likewise with the recently opened Casa del Menor Migrante.

Chihuahua state authorities say they have provided assistance including meals and temporary housing at those shelters to 3,300 migrant minors since Jan. 1.

Most of the minors traditionally come from Mexico and Guatemala, but the shelters lately have been housing minors from Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Ecuador. Most had just arrived in the city with the intent of crossing into the U.S. when Mexican authorities encountered them and took them to shelters. Others are Mexican minors who were repatriated by U.S. authorities as per an agreement with Mexico.

Juarez DIF President Rubi Enriquez said Tuesday’s signing clearly sets ground rules of cooperation between two entities who are already working together on behalf of vulnerable children.

“It is our priority, as is UNICEF’s priority, to see that children grow up in a safe environment, with food, with access to education and protection against exploitation,” Enriquez said. “By formalizing our alliance, we can take concrete steps, with goals and focus, when we go out on the streets to make sure children are safe.”