Our Journey.
Past local community programs had never been able to reach or influence heavily impoverished Los Francos because of the low level of interest and attendance. We soon realized community trust and accessibility were key to facilitating a successful women's program. Based on FICD insight that women did not feel comfortable coming to organized and formal community meetings, we broke away from the traditional method of facilitating educational events at a community center. Instead, we went house by house to gauge interest and then formed 4 groups of 10 women, each based on location. These groups then designated a weekly place and time to meet for their respective discussions - their charlas. The meeting spots were a group member's patio, to encourage informality and, therefore, attendance. Discussion-based content of our program is below:
- Week 1: Gender and Sex
- Week 2: Sexuality
- Week 3: STIs and Pregnancy
- Week 4: Domestic Violence
- Week 5: Self Esteem and Healthy Habits
Progress and Results.
After our initial charlas, we started to see clear changes. Women began to speak out more with their opinions; they started to joke around, share personal stories and experiences, ask deep questions about each other's lives, and even persuade their friends to attend meetings regularly. By week 3, the women who had never been interested in educational events by FICD started to participate in such initiatives to seek education for themselves. The change in attitude was reflective of the trust that had developed between the women of the community themselves and with us, and the impact of our educational content. A women's association was formed as a result of our summer program where three women of the community were elected to be the leaders and to continue organizing community meetings. The association was endowed with a foundational fund to continue women meetings in the future to intervene domestic violence cases, address community needs, and facilitate union.
Sample of Content
Inter-activeness and discussion were the two most important aspects of our charlas. Understanding that our participants were the most knowledgeable of their day-to-day challenges, we focused on posing questions that encouraged exchange of knowledge between the women of the community, instead of imposing our perspectives on the subject matters.
Please scroll down to see one sample presentation that we used and our final summary of covered content:
Please scroll down to see one sample presentation that we used and our final summary of covered content:
Photo exhibition.
We created a photo collection of all participants for a future exhibition by FIDC. We have framed pictures of all participant in the new women center, to add a sense of belonging to the new space, encourage future participation and foster grass-root leadership.