Tackling Poverty in Colombia
/0 Comments/in Guest Author /by Catalina EscobarMy name is Catalina Escobar. I was born and raised in Colombia, a country typically violent with great social despair. I was very fortunate to grow up in a family where my brother and I were raised with love, respect, equal opportunities and where education was one of the main pillars. I studied in Europe, Japan and in the U.S., and speak three languages. Despite my traveling, I was always aware of what was going on in my country and constantly thought of going back to help in some way. The news was always bad: how drug lords were infiltrating the government, guerrillas killing famers and burning the country’s infrastructure, people being forcibly displaced, growing extreme poverty, corruption and, of course, all of the gender violence and inequality one can possibly imagine.
When I returned to Colombia, I started working in banking. I was in the private sector with many personal aspirations, but I was always trying to give back to society by making donations and by volunteering in some initiatives. Soon I got married and started a family. In 1998, with our first child, we moved to my husband’s hometown of Cartagena for about three years.
Cartagena is a beautiful city located in the northern part of Colombia along the Caribbean Sea, very wealthy indeed in some parts but, without a doubt, one of the cities in the country that has the greatest social disparity: 68% of the population is under the poverty line, and of those 29% in utter misery.
By the end of the year 2000, I was personally affected by the deaths of two babies, changing the course of my life. I was a volunteer at the Rafael Calvo Maternity Hospital twice a week, the biggest hospital in town – 50% of the population is born there, all of them poor. During one of my visits, a newborn baby passed away in my arms. It was a preventable death. That life could have been saved with the $30 I had in my pocket; her teen mother couldn’t raise the money to cover the baby’s treatment. A week later my own second son, Juan Felipe, who was only 16 months old, died from an accident when he fell from an eighth-floor balcony. Broken hearted, I decided to take action so that no mother would have to feel such grief, just because she didn’t have the money to save her children.
With these two incidents, I decided to sell my small company and found the Juan Felipe Escobar Foundation (JuanFe) with two main purposes: to save children’s lives and to work with teen mothers who live in extreme poverty, by providing opportunities so they can overcome poverty traps such as unwanted pregnancies, lack of real economic opportunities, lack of quality education, lack of proper access to healthcare, domestic and sexual violence, and gender discrimination.
All of my talents and energy were focused on two objectives: create real social transformation and impact, and to create an organization that is both sustainable and replicable overtime. I knew the problem was enormous. I knew that I was going to face many barriers, from violence in the communities to fundraising, but I wasn’t afraid.
The JuanFe Foundation was conceived since the beginning as an organization that would always target the critical factors of poverty. In the first eight years of operation, we reduced the total infant mortality rate in the city by 81% from when it was the highest in the country, saving the lives of more than 3,500 babies. By the year 2000, approximately 50 children in Cartagena would not survive to the age of five (per 1,000 live births); by the end of 2009, that number decreased to about 11. In targeting just one hospital, the Rafael Calvo, we created high social impact. Eventually we realized there was a major underlying problem here: all these babies were trapped in poverty, because their mothers were trapped in poverty. 30% of women who give birth in Cartagena are teenagers, and the vast majority of them are from marginalized communities. It took us almost seven years to develop what we call the “360 Degree Intervention Model” in order to break the cycle of poverty, which includes access to healthcare, psychological and emotional counseling, and skills training for productive activities.
Like many of the developing countries that face violence and poverty, women and girls are the main target for abuse. A poor girl is more likely to either be recruited by the guerrillas, become a sexual slave for the paramilitaries, be sexually abused, become pregnant at early age, suffer from malnutrition, become a victim of physical violence, or all of the above.
That’s why every time I see one of my girls fulfilling her dreams by graduating from our program, having a responsible sex-life, being employed, earning a decent and stable income, breaking those chains of poverty, I feel like the proudest mom ever. All of the 2,800 girls we have worked with are my daughters.
In the last quarter century there has been a lot of positive change for women and girls around the world, and gradually organizations have realized that gender equality is the best instrument for development. More and more, studies prove that investing in education and development for women is not only the right thing to do, but also a long-term investment. After 14 years in this field, I have seen young women move forward with the full conviction that they are key agents of change, and that it is the right and obligation for every society to make women and girls a priority.
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Response to Concerns about Kibera
/0 Comments/in News /by The A Path Appears TeamThe team at A Path Appears would like to thank you for feedback shared on social media since the broadcast of A Path Appears: Violence and Solutions, the third episode of the three-part documentary series. Some of the feedback raised questions regarding population, rape and public service statistics included in the segment filmed in Kibera. We stand by the use of these statistics, however we decided to revise the episode description on our website in order to remove any ambiguity and offer more specific detail in response to some of the questions.
For clarity, the population of Kibera has been heavily contested over the years. Nonetheless, the most credible external sources (agencies such as UNDP and UN-Habitat) agree the current population is between 700,000 to one million people. The Kibera constituency itself is a large area encompassing both formal middle-class settlements and informal settlements where people live in conditions of extreme poverty.
Several middle-class areas that are considered a part of the Kibera constituency, located outside of the informal settlements, do indeed have roads, power, running water*, and public schools. In the informal settlements of Kibera where A Path Appears was filmed in 2013, there was no formal government power**, roads, running water or public services. Shining Hope for Communities (SHOFCO), which is featured in this segment, reported that in the past few months the government started to change this through the National Youth Service and plans to upgrade roads, build community clinics and sanitation points, as well as improve community policing and access to police services. While many of these programs are not yet complete, several are in the early stages of development and planning and there is hope that they will be sustainable beyond their implementation.
It is our hope that the current attention to these issues will help provide additional momentum to ensure that in the future, all families and children in Kibera will have access to clean water and working sewage systems. We’ve interviewed dozens of residents of Kibera who have identified the lack of water and sanitation services as one of the biggest needs of their community, and are encouraged by the recent attention the government has given these issues.
The first four kindergarten classes in the Kibera School for Girls reported that 15 percent of students had been sexually assaulted or abused before entering school. In a recent 2014 internal survey, SHOFCO reports a decrease in this number to six percent. This is great news and a testament to the changing attitudes and conditions for the most vulnerable children in the community, the population SHOFCO serves. Additionally, the organization’s gender department in Kibera currently has 41 cases investigating gender-based violence (GBV) that are currently in the court system. SHOFCO is making great strides in providing services, outreach, and community partnerships to collectively address issues of violence against women.
In the period we were in Kibera to film A Path Appears, we were made aware of multiple reported rapes outside of those that were in the film. Many women we spoke to in Kibera talked about the difficulty of coming forward as survivors of GBV, due to numerous challenges, including intimidation, legal and police procedures, and holding perpetrators accountable. These statements point to a real need to provide additional support for survivors of GBV, and we are hopeful that in light of the recent dialogue around the statistics, these challenges will be addressed.
A Path Appears is a journey of hope from Nashville and West Virginia in America to Cartagena in Colombia, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, and to Kibera in Kenya, highlighting the work of organizations creating tangible change within their communities. The segment exploring Kibera reflected the strength and ability of this community to come together in supporting their most vulnerable, while also giving a voice to the people living through some of these challenges.
It is our hope that viewers will humanize the issues of inequality and the burden of poverty facing women and girls through our global exploration, and that they support the organizations making tremendous impact towards social justice. These dialogues are exactly the sorts of conversations we seek to have, to shed light on important issues, and ultimately, lead to action.
*Running water implies that water is piped to homes via a public utility.
**Government power implies power that is not from stolen lines and is accessible to homes.
A Path Appears: Shining Hope
/0 Comments/in News /by Alejandra SacioIn A Path Appears: Violence and Solutions, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn travelled with Mia Farrow and her son Ronan Farrow to the Kibera School for Girls to investigate the way Shining Hope for Communities is changing the future of thousands of people in their community. During the episode, we met two girls struggling with the damaging effects of gender based violence: Flavian and Ida.
When we met Flavian she could not walk and was suffering a severe infection caused by long-term sexual abuse by a family member. Today, Flavian is thriving. Her education at one of Kenya’s finest boarding schools has been supported through SHOFCO’s programs that sponsor ongoing education for girls who are survivors of gender-based violence. She loves school and is excelling in class. During winter break, Flavian joined the other girls who live at SHOFCO’s safe house (including Ida!) for an amazing leadership trip that took them across Kenya, visiting the Maasai Mara and other beautiful national sites. Flavian’s case will close this year. Her perpetrator is still in jail, and SHOFCO’s legal counsel is confident he will remain there.
Ida’s grandfather called on SHOFCO to help when the police refused to seek justice for his four year old grandchild after she was raped. The case was heartbreaking, especially when it was revealed that her rapist was another child. But progress was made.
Ida finished her first year of Pre-School at The Kibera School for Girls and has just started Kindergarten. She is a ball of energy with a charming smile—playful and blossoming. Maureen, the social worker who helped rescue Ida, has seen an amazing transformation. While Ida used to be so reserved that she was unable to relate to other students, she is now “vibrant, confident, and disciplined.” Just this morning, while Maureen and Ida were washing their hands together, Maureen inquired why Ida wasn’t wearing her school shoes. Ida replied in perfect English they did not fit her anymore. This confident, simple answer impressed Maureen because when Ida was rescued, shyness would have prevented her from answering.
Ida’s teachers report that when she came to KSG she could not sound out letters. Now, she is reading entire books on her own. She has gained immense confidence, which she showed off as one of the stars of her class’ end-of-year fashion show. While counseling has helped a great deal, Ida’s teachers and fellow students have also been instrumental in helping her come out of her shell and overcome her history.
Ida’s perpetrator is serving time at a juvenile rehabilitation center and attending school there. SHOFCO’s gender department is working hard with young boys in the community through its soccer programs to discuss gender-based violence at a young age. Its SHOFCO’s hope that Ida’s perpetrator will turn his life around and serve as an example.
Ida now lives in the safe and loving environment of SHOFCO’s boarding facility, Margaret’s Safe Place. She dreams of becoming a doctor when she grows up. She and Janet are still best friends.
A Path Appears visited Shining Hope for Communities’ Kibera School for Girls during a pivotal moment. In the fall of 2014, SHOFCO scaled its grassroots model in Kibera to the second largest slum in Nairobi, Mathare, launching with the core of its innovative approach: a free school for girls. The school provides students with the holistic support needed to keep them in school to the completion of their education and with the tools to forge paths out of poverty for themselves and their families.
Meanwhile, SHOFCO continues to grow and deepen its infrastructure in its flagship Kibera site. They are expanding access to healthcare with a planned network of satellite clinics attached to toilets and water kiosks, encouraging the community to use WASH services in conjunction with healthcare. Through a continued focus on early childhood education, they have developed a daycare program with 65 blossoming children. They also take great pride in their oldest students, who rose to the 6th grade in 2015! To nurture these students, the school has instilled a mentorship program that exposes them to female role models and opportunities in the professional realm outside of Kibera.