Nicaragua:
Semana 2, la Casa de la Mujer
Hola a todos! It
is Sunday the 30th of June as I write this, and the end of my second week in
Nicaragua. This week has focused mostly
on getting to know Casa de la Mujer, the organization where I will be working,
and drafting out what I will be doing while I am there. They seemed to have a pretty firm idea of
what they wanted to do with me before I arrived, so Monday consisted of working
out deadlines for all the various steps that need to be completed in order to
plan the events.
The project I will be working on has two parts. First, they want to reinforce the work that
was done by Corrie, the intern who worked at Casa de la Mujer before me. She worked on implementing a network of Women’s
Rights Promoters, who go into the various communities in Tola to teach the
women who live there about their rights and about how they can seek justice if
they have been abused. In order to carry
on with this project, we are first going to have an “intercambio”, or a meeting where all the promoters from the
different communities come together to share experiences and advice and talk
about what more they want to do with the program. Then, later in August, we are planning a
workshop about the new Law 779, La Ley
Integral Contra la Violencia Hacia Mujeres (Comprehensive Law Against
Violence Towards Women), which was just recently passed in January 2012. According to the Instituto Nicaragüense de la Mujer (the Nicaraguan Women’s
Institute), the law “aims to improve public policies on violence prevention and
eradicate gender discrimination” (translation mine). 1
The second part of the project is focused on developing
the economic empowerment of the women in Tola.
The municipio of Tola—especially the communities closer to the beach,
like Las Salinas and Limón—have experienced a massive boom in tourism in the
last few years (in fact, there was a big surf competition just a few days
before I arrived, and surfers from around the world came to the area to
compete). So my supervisors, Martita and
Teresita, wanted to teach the women in those communities some skills they can
use to start small businesses marketed at said tourists. So at the moment, we are planning a workshop
on how to start and run a small business, and then three workshops on different
products around which to build a small business—one workshop on jewelry making,
and two on baking/pastry making. We
still have to finalize details, but that’s basically the framework of the
project I’ll be working one.
I also got a chance to get to know observe a few other of
the activities of Casa de la Mujer. On
Wednesday, there was an informational fair in the park in Rivas about drug
prevention, AIDS prevention, and other health issues—apparently, June 26th
is the International Day of the Fight Against Drugs (in Spanish, El Día Internacional de la Lucha Contra las
Drogas). A few different organizations
and government ministries, like the Ministry of Health, participated. Casa de la Mujer was there, handing out
information about gender-based violence and women’s health. Below are a couple pictures of the event.
On Thursday, I visited the first part of the meeting of
the group Auto Ayuda, which is a support group for women who’ve experienced
violence or abuse, either physical or psychological. I only came for a little while at the
beginning of the meeting, to say hi to the women and here about what the group
does. Once they started sharing their
stories, I left, because all the information shared at the meetings is
confidential. It was really great,
though, to hear the women talk about how participating in Auto Ayuda helped
them heal from the abuse they had experienced and had helped them regain a
sense of confidence and self-worth.
Yesterday morning, I travelled out to Las Salinas to
invite the women in the network of Women’s Rights Promoters who live in that
area to the intercambio we are
planning. Several of the Las Salinas
women in the network are also part of a cooperative that, among other things,
makes organic compost using worms and cow dung.
They were working on that when Alex (the FSD Program Coordinator here in
Tola) and I went to see them. It was
really interesting to see their work and talk with them about the project.
Aside from work, I’ve also gotten to spend a lot of time
with my host family, just sharing stories or playing games or watching the
finals of Miss Teen Nicaragua with the girls.
They attend the Nazarene church here in Tola, so last Sunday and this
morning I went to church with them. I’m
really happy to have found a faith community to be a part of while I am here
and that I can attend with my host family.
The congregation has a very strong sense of community and mutual love
and support, and they have been so welcoming of me.
As usual, there are a lot more stories I could probably
tell, but for the sake of conciseness I shall wrap it up here. This week I’ll begin working on writing a
grant proposal for the project I’m working on and drafting a budget, so
hopefully I should have some interesting updates for you next weekend! In
the meantime, que todos se cuiden, y hablamos muy pronto. ¡Abrazos!
Sources:
1http://www.inim.gob.ni/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1149:ley-779&catid=1:latest-news
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