Mano en Mano Childcare to provide bilingual, affordable childcare services in 2021

We are excited to announce that starting in January of 2021, Mano en Mano will be opening a bilingual childcare center for children in the Downeast Maine area. Our mission will be to provide bilingual Spanish and English child care services to those who value language and culture at the core of our programming. 

As families grow and new families settle in our community each year, we look forward to being able to provide such a vital and culturally relative service for working families. Reflecting on the significance of the childcare center, Mano en Mano’s Juana Rodriguez Vazquez shared: 

“Working in local education and having lived in this community for over 20 years, I know that bilingual, multicultural spaces are important to childhood development and that these educational opportunities and spaces are often hard to find here in the Downeast area. We hope this center can provide our youth with strong foundations in celebrating language and culture and that it will serve as a bridge between monolingual English and Spanish speaking families. In fact, bringing these cultures together through bilingual education is an explicit goal of the program.” 

To start the center will be located in the Mano en Mano conference room in Milbridge and operated on a smaller scale based on the space and COVID-19 precautions, serving 12 toddler and preschool students. Later, the center will expand to a new location in Milbridge with the hope to serve additional children ages 0-13  with increased space and capacity. 

Initial slots will be selected by lottery, after which a waitlist will be established and students will be admitted on a first-come/first-serve basis. The center will focus on providing childcare to both year-round children as well as the children of migrant workers in the area during different agricultural seasons throughout the year. Under the leadership of Juana Rodriguez Vazquez (Education Director), teachers of the center and a parent advisory board will make decisions about the center once it is up and running. The childcare center will be open to all families in the Downeast community. 

Stay tuned for updates about the childcare center and ways to support this project and get involved (Covid-19 permitting) in the coming months and in the New Year!