Gender Equality Guatemala Project #45364

Help Prevent Child Marriage in Rural Guatemala

by Women's Justice Initiative

Help Prevent Child Marriage in Rural Guatemala

Project Report | Jan 18, 2022
Continuing WJI's Work to Empower Women and Girls

By Mary Catherine Driese | Impact and Development Officer

January 2022: GlobalGiving Update

The Women’s Justice Initiative continues to make strides towards creating a safer world for indigenous women and girls in rural Guatemala, adapting to the continued limitations that the COVID-19 pandemic imposes. WJI has successfully implemented programming with adolescent girls from 3 new communities in Tecpán, empowered women in Comalapa to know and exercise their rights, begun training the next cohort of Community Advocates in Comalapa, and has completed community mapping in San Martin Jilotepeque and San José Poaquil. The team is excited to have made so much forward momentum to expand WJI’s programs and bring support to women and girls in diverse communities.

Adolescent Girls Program:

WJI began to implement its Adolescent Girls Program for the first time in Tecpán in three communities: Xejaví, Pamanzana, and Panimacoc. Over 99 adolescent girls are currently participating in the program. WJI is piloting a new strategy to deliver the Adolescent Girls Program primarily through the Community Advocates who graduated in July 2021 because of their leadership abilities, extensive education in women’s rights, and their close connection to the communities. During the last few months, the Community Advocates have continued to strengthen the bond between WJI and community leaders, reinforcing the positive relationship WJI has been working towards for years in Tecpán. In addition to the program goals, which are to delay marriage among adolescent girls, encourage healthy relationships, and set personal and professional goals, the Community Advocates provide emotional support to the girls during the challenging phase of adolescence.

The Women’s Rights Education Program and Community Advocates in Comalapa:

During the fall of 2021, over 270 women from San Juan Comalapa graduated from the Women’s Rights Education Program, ready to exercise their rights. After completing the program, 90% of the women can name and describe their human rights and none of the women now believe a man has the right to hit his wife. Currently, a second cohort of 130 women are learning their rights, how to exercise those rights, and how to achieve gender equality in their interpersonal relationships. Additionally, WJI’s staff began to train 24 Community Advocates in San Juan Comalapa, who are bringing their enthusiasm for justice, empowerment, and gender-equitable relationships to the women in their communities.

Community Mapping in San Martín Jilotepeque and San José Poaquil:

WJI recently launched an expansion into the municipalities of San Martín Jilotepeque and San José Poaquil. Community mapping is the first step in WJI’s multipronged approach to achieve success in its community-based programming in new municipalities. Community mapping serves as WJI’s ‘first encounter’ with the communities and creates a first impression of WJI in the communities, paving the way for our program staff and legal team to begin working in the area.

WJI created a plan for community mapping in each municipality, collaborating with a diverse set of actors, including WJI’s Monitoring and Evaluation team, field technicians from the municipalities WJI serves, consultants, community leaders, and WJI’s Community Advocates, who have trained with WJI for two years to gain leadership skills and learn WJI’s methodology. The maps show the natural geography of the communities, demographic information, and measures the interest of women and girls in WJI’s rights-based programming. While all of these actors play a crucial role in the process, Community Advocates contributed significant time and effort to the process, as they understood the specific needs and issues within rural, indigenous communities.

Links:

Permalink

Sep 21, 2021
Adolescent Girls and Boys Programs - Sept. Updates

By Jessica Pasquarello | Communications and Development Fellow

Boys' graduation in Chipiacul

The Women’s Justice Initiative continues to make strides towards building a more equitable world for indigenous girls in rural Guatemala, despite heightened challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. WJI has successfully completed programming with adolescent girls from 6 communities and made significant progress in a pilot program with adolescent boys focused on shifting gender norms and building healthy masculinities. Together, these programs help improve girls’ knowledge of their rights and transform local norms and attitudes that condone child marriage. We’re excited to share the following updates on these two programs:

Adolescent Girls Program:

In recent months, 198 girls have graduated from the Adolescent Girls program. WJI conducted the program in a total of six communities in Tecpán and Patzún. The girls in each community (ages 10-17) participated in bi-weekly workshops focused on learning and asserting their rights, delaying marriage, and achieving their personal goals. To limit COVID exposure, WJI divided cohorts into smaller groups of girls and switched to bi-weekly workshops covering two topics.

Across the communities, WJI saw positive changes in girls’ attitudes, increased knowledge, and greater confidence. Survey results demonstrated an increase in the percentage of girls that can name types of violence against women and girls and a decrease in the percentage of girls that agree that only boys should be in school if the family is short on money. The average age at which girls would like to marry increased from 20 years old to 24 years old.

In the months to come, WJI will continue our work with adolescent girls by launching the program in an additional three communities in Tecpán.

Adolescent Boys Pilot Project:

WJI has successfully implemented a pilot program with boys called Healthy Masculinities that runs parallel to the Adolescent Girls Program in three communities in Patzun. The first cohort graduated in August 2021. Through the program, 67 adolescent boys participated in workshops on topics related to machismo and healthy masculinity. WJI has noted initial successes with high participation of boys and their families and an acceptance of topics introduced. WJI will conduct a full evaluation of the program upon completion, in order to inform our efforts moving forward.

WJI also held the first joint events with participants of the boys and girls programs, in a half day-long event, which included interactive activities and games focused on preventing gender-based violence and early marriage. As part of the Encuentro, participants learned to play Maya handball, a traditional Mayan game. These events provided a space for positive socialization among 144 children from three communities.

Supporters like you help us to equip girls with the tools to change their lives and their communities. Please consider making a donation to the Women’s Justice Initiative. Thank you so much for your support of our work!

Girls' graduation in Pachimulin

Girls' graduation in Las Mercedes

Links:

Permalink

May 24, 2021
WJI's 2021 Mid-Year Updates

By Jessica Pasquarello | Communications and Development Fellow

The Adolescent Girls Program

COVID-19 and the corresponding economic impacts have exacerbated existing challenges encountered by rural, indigenous women in Guatemala, as the risk of child marriage and violence against women and girls (VAWG) has significantly increased since the start of the pandemic. The Women’s Justice Initiative remains committed to addressing these issues in 2021 and we’re thrilled to share updates on our work.

Legal Empowerment and Protection

Thus far in 2021, WJI has worked on 212 legal cases, 77% of which were related to VAWG. WJI also offers optional psychological support to all of the women it serves and has continued providing education about women’s rights, gender-based violence protection, and the consequences of early unions through its Women’s Rights Education Program and Adolescent Girls Program.

Adolescent Girls and Boys Pilot Programs

WJI planned to start an Adolescent Boys Pilot Program in March 2020 that would parallel the organization’s Adolescent Girls Program and teach young boys to respect gender equality, delay marriage, and support girls. The program was put on hold for 11 months due to COVID-19, but re-started in February 2021 in the communities of El Cojobal, Chipiacul, and Xepatán. Currently, 75 boys (ages 8 to 12) are participating in the program and have learned about topics such as self-esteem, communication skills, and human rights. There are also 92 young girls actively participating in the Adolescent Girls Program across three communities and WJI has organized a meeting in June 2021 for the boys and girls.

Expansion and Sustainability

Recently, WJI expanded to a third municipality, San Juan Comalapa, and completed community mapping in 12 communities, identifying local needs, meeting with community leaders, and recruiting women and girls for its programs. Women’s rights education workshops have already begun in 6 of these communities!

Meanwhile, Community Advocates in 12 communities just graduated from their two-year, intensive training in leadership development and human rights. These local women Advocates serve as educators and mentors in their communities and refer women and girls to the services that they need. This greatly contributes to the sustainability of WJI’s work and helps WJI more rapidly scale and reach larger numbers of women.

Moving Forward

Building on the lessons learned while carrying out its response to COVID-19, WJI will:

Continue to implement new technologies and incorporate greater use of tablets and other devices;
Develop additional radio programming to spread information in various local languages about COVID-19, vaccinations, and women’s rights;
Maintain its 24/7 domestic violence hotline (which was created in response to office closures during the pandemic and has been highly effective); and
Strengthen the role of Community Advocates, who helped WJI plan its strategy during the crisis after identifying the most urgent needs at the community level.

Supporters like you allow us to continue providing vital resources and assistance to the women and girls we serve and to adapt our programs to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Please consider making a donation to the Women’s Justice Initiative and thank you so much for your support of our work!

Community Mapping

Adolescent Boys Pilot Program

Links:

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.