Gender Equality Bolivia Project #38170

Support 125 children at Refugio Rafael in Bolivia

by Global Gallery, Inc.

Project Report | Jan 4, 2021
First Cohort Moving into Independent Living

By Connie De Jong | Project Leader

There is no doubt 2020 was a year for facing challenges, pivoting, and learning about ourselves in ways no one anticipated. The same was true at our project, as for most of the year, we could not gather children together to learn, go out to regular work, or celebrate success in the larger community. Bolivia dealt with a major election as well as lockdowns and complete logistical shut down of movement of basic necessities. It was a year that called for resilience.

While we had planned 2 groups of travelers to support our project in 2020, both groups had to cancel due to travel restrictions. Shortly after, Bolivia placed severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods, our after-school program had to close, and families in the refuge had to shelter in place. The families in the refuge counted on both support in the form of basic food items from the government, as well as support from Fundacion Ayllu to provide sustenance to the children and their mothers. Each of the 4 families in the refuge learned to count on the others as they turned to grow more of their food in the garden, and look to each other for help with continuing education, cooking, passing the time, and making more handcrafts.

The first silver lining in the pandemic year was found in that co-dependence. While living in close proximity and managing traumatic backgrounds is fertile ground for conflict among the families, the pandemic highlighted the ways that living together makes everyone better. Each mother put aside her judgments of the others, and the women took time to appreciate and support one another in ways that had not occurred before.

The second silver lining was in that the Foundation had more time to focus on the goal for 2020 - helping each mother work towards her goal of living independently. Each mother completed an assessment of the steps needed for her individual situation and the Foundation set a plan in motion to support each of the mothers in her quest. The first success was for Guillermina who had to both complete a legal process and gain the support of the community to allow her to move into the family home that was lost when her husband died. Guillermina, with Foundation support, completed both of these tasks in August, and during a break between quarantines, she moved her family back to this family home. During the time she was not able to live there, the community also built a high school, and now the children will all be able to continue in this high school, now at or above their age level in school. We celebrated this great news with a short phone call, and cannot wait to visit Guillermina and the family in their home community.

Constantina, who gave birth to twins early in the year, has been supported by special help from the Foundation to find a living situation that will support her cognitive needs and help her develop the skills she needs to be able to raise her children. We expect her to move into a supported living situation in 2021.

Celia has been able to negotiate the payment of a loan to a family member that will help her complete the home she started to build. Celia will have access to a new fund started for the purpose of supporting mothers from trauma to independence. Juana also will benefit from this new program and fund, endowed by long time supporters of the project, and your donations. She will purchase a small plot of land near the refuge and build her home on this land.

While 2020 brought great suffering, we are proud that we have been able to set the foundation for the most important part of our programming - supporting women to construct their own independent living plan. We expect that in 2021 we will be able to host new single-parent families and support them in their own quest to improve their children's health, education, and to develop their own plans to thrive again. We also look forward to restarting after school programming and to growing the small businesses, particularly handcraft sales, that grew in 2020.

making crafts

Juana knitting

handcrafts

Constantina with twins

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Sep 8, 2020
Weathering Covid-19

By Connie De Jong | US Representative

May 11, 2020
Sheltering Together in the Refuge

By Connie De Jong | Project Leader

Sharing a meal

Our current state of the world due to the Covid-19 pandemic has had deep consequences in Bolivia, particularly for the most vulnerable populations like those we serve at Refugio Rafael and through Ayllu Foundation. After experiencing challenging circumstances during the political upheaval in late 2019, the pandemic and required stay at home measures have affected all the families and children we serve.

The after school programming has been closed for now, due to social distancing requirements. The government is looking for ways to support students through printing materials for parents to guide children through. This is an issue for our community because the children mostly surpass their parents in their level of education, so older siblings may be the only ones to help younger siblings, but there is no one to help the older ones. There have also been some suggestions of online resources, but most of our community does not have either computers or an internet connection in the home. We expect the need for educational support to be very big when classes return to normal and we hope to have extra resources in place at that time.

The families in the shelter portion of our project are sheltering together, supporting one another and all 4 mothers are at home as lockdown measures do not allow for them to work. While the income is important, we have been able to redirect resources to support the nutritional eating for the families and continue to support their activities of growing food at the site. While difficult, the women and families are learning to lean on one another more than ever and are creating a stronger sense of community among one other. These silver linings are those we look to for hope in times of trouble.

As Bolivia has extended the stay at home order, we look to intensify our focus on handcraft development and breadmaking that we might perfect our skills and provide more opportunities for income generation once the pandemic has passed. Please look for the handcrafted products once they are rolled out on our partner website.

Finally, the Board of the Foundation has met virtually in order to plan collectively for the next steps for growth and support of the projects. We have agreed to work on securing funding to support the purchase of land and simple home construction for the families in the refuge and to create a path to independence for them in our next stage of development.

Your support is vital and we so appreciate your interest in our work, your financial support, your plans for future visits, and all your correspondence. We know we are not alone and give you virtual hugs in hopes of real ones to come in the not so distant future.

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