Start Date: May/2020
End Date: April/2021
85 volunteers
The project "Empower Yourself, Make an Impact, and Stand Against Violencewas developed within the framework of MADRE's VIVA Girls Initiative. As its launch was scheduled for the second quarter of 2020, coinciding with the arrival of COVID-19 in Guatemala, we needed to make some adjustments to it, since the fight for the human rights of adolescent girls had to continue in Guatemala with or without the pandemic.
In this context, we report that the initial proposal of the project included as its first component the execution of three interactive training camps with 50 adolescent girls from five Basic Education Institutes in the southern area of Petén, focusing on leadership, responsible sexuality, prevention of sexual violence, and early pregnancies. However, due to the emergency caused by Covid-19 and the restrictions imposed by the Guatemalan government, face-to-face activities were limited, which prevented the realization of the camps and other planned activities.
This did not prevent us from continuing with the project execution. Thanks to the flexibility in the development of activities by MADRE's VIVA Girls Initiative, the project was reformulated to develop 5 Interactive Training Circles with groups of 10 adolescent girls each, to avoid crowds and protect the health of participants and collaborators of AMA Association. This alternative worked well in place of the camps.
The Interactive Training Circles focused on Responsible Sexuality and Prevention of Sexual Violence, as violence and pregnancies among adolescent girls increased during the pandemic, making it necessary to empower them with more tools to prevent pregnancies and sexual violence and better face the challenges and difficulties that increased with the pandemic.
The circles were facilitated by the coordinator of the Adolescent Component of the national sexual and reproductive health program of the Petén Sur Oriente health area and project technicians from AMA, who used an interactive methodology that generated greater participation of the adolescent girls, making the teaching-learning process more dynamic and achieving a better understanding of the content.
Additionally, at that time, the epidemiological traffic light allowed us to carry out face-to-face activities with sanitation measures. Also, as the number of training days was reduced, the funds allocated for food and other expenses for the camps were used to provide food bags and hygiene kits to the 50 adolescent girls, thus helping to mitigate the negative effects on the economy caused by COVID-19 and the ETA and IOTA storms on Guatemalan families.
The training circles were conducted in the following basic education institutes: Tikajal neighborhood, San Luis; Ixobel neighborhood, Poptún; Nuevo del Carmen neighborhood, Dolores; San Juan El Chal village; Cooperative Nuevo Horizonte and Santa Ana, Petén.
Additionally, another interactive training circle was conducted with 25 adolescent girls from the AHICAM home, who are survivors of sexual violence. They were also given food bags and hygiene kits, as AHICAM still needs donations to survive. Thus, we not only empowered adolescent girls on responsible sexuality and violence prevention but also strengthened access to food, menstrual hygiene, and COVID-19 prevention.
Having a Zoom account, provided to AMA by the VIVA Girls Initiative, also worked very well. It allowed us to conduct more than 50% of the meetings of the Local Referral Network for Attention to Female Victims of Crime in Southern Petén virtually without interruption, as initially, they were conducted on the free platform, which required restarting the meeting every 45 minutes and sending a new link, often delaying the progress of the meeting and causing participants to disconnect.
The Network included the participation of 40 leaders delegated from different government and non-government institutions and organizations in Southern Petén, with the meetings aimed at joining efforts to provide a comprehensive response, tailored to the reality of the crime survivors.
The project also included 15 broadcasts of the Spanish-Maya Q´eqchi´ radio program “The ABC of Sexuality” on U´tan Kaj community radio, mostly listened to by the Maya Q´eqchi´ and mestizo indigenous population of rural and marginal urban areas of Guatemala. This program has an open forum format for young women to openly discuss topics of responsible sexuality and COVID-19 prevention. Additionally, broadcasts started to be made through Facebook Live on the FanPage of AMA Association, reaching adolescent girls and young women in urban areas.
Broadcasting the program bilingually worked very well, as it allowed adolescent girls to receive information in their language, encouraging them to communicate more confidently with the program to resolve their doubts.
Broadcasting on Facebook Live innovated the ways in which AMA Association transfers capacities and carries out advocacy, reaching more adolescent girls, especially from marginal urban areas of the urban centers of Petén, Izabal, Quiché, Baja, and Alta Verapaz departments, where there is also a high rate of pregnancies and sexual violence. Thus, transmitting information related to their Sexual and Reproductive Rights was important and worked very well during the project.
Changing the start dates of the "Score a Goal Against Violence"women's soccer championshipworked out wonderfully, allowing it to be held without any issues and strengthened the participation of the teams. The young women participants took it as a space to assert their rights, escape the stress caused by the pandemic confinement, and distance themselves from the violence and inequalities they experience at home.
During the championship, 100 adolescent girls and young women from Southern Petén participated. During the matches, important data about sexual violence and early pregnancies were shared, and the Fair Play team was awarded, as one of the objectives of this activity was to promote fair play and sisterhood among women.
At the end of the project, we will have contributed to reducing the rates of sexual violence and pregnancies in adolescent girls and young women in Southern Petén, Guatemala.
Volunteering:
Se tuvieron de voluntarias 175 adolescentes y mujeres jóvenes Maya Q’eqchi y Mestizas de comunidades rurales de los municipios de San Luis, Poptún, Dolores, El Chal y Santa Ana y Petén.
Sexual violence and pregnancies among adolescent girls and young women are increasing problems in Guatemala, and the communities of Southern Petén are no exception (Municipalities of San Luis, Poptún, Dolores, El Chal, and Santa Ana).
As a result, the National Observatory of Sexual and Reproductive Health – OSAR – reports that from January to October 2019, there were 114,858 pregnancies among indigenous and mestizo girls and adolescents aged 10 to 19 years, of which 5,061 correspond to girls between 10 to 14 years, an age where they are typified as Victims of Sexual Violence.
For the same period in Petén, OSAR reports 3,685 pregnancies among girls and adolescents aged 10 to 19 years, of which 177 correspond to sexual violence crimes as they are girls aged 10 to 14 years.
In Southern Petén, there are 1,070 pregnancies among girls and adolescents aged 10 to 19 years, of which OSAR reports that 41 correspond to girls aged 10 to 14 years.