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Listening to the Voices of Survivors: The Importance of Incorporating Restorative Justice Approaches in Guatemala

11/27/2023

“Guatemala has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world.”
-World Bank, 2023

This fact makes Guatemala one of the most dangerous countries in the world for girls and women to live. It is a heartbreaking reality that has fueled our passionate commitment to girls’ empowerment and gender equity from the day we decided to bring REALgirl (SERnina) to Guatemalan communities in 2014. Clearly, addressing gender-based violence would have to be part of our mission if we had any hope of succeeding with our goals related to girls’ empowerment and gender equity.

In 2021, we received a significant grant from the Fund for Innovation and Transformation (FIT) and Global Affairs Canada which funded the testing of our Whole Family Healing Program (Holistic Three-Pronged Approach to Violence Prevention & Response) with the objective of expanding, deepening, and diversifying our efforts to address gender-based violence. Recognizing the complex, systemic, and historic nature of gender-based violence in Guatemala, we knew it was critical to be extremely thoughtful in our approach. When it came to addressing gender-based violence in our partner community of El Hato, we knew we had to look carefully at the unique and complex circumstances of the violence and recognize the many obstacles that stood in the way of eradicating gender-based violence.

One of the greatest obstacles we identified in providing the supports needed to address gender-based violence was the strong reluctance of many female victims to report abuse or seek support. Through our previous in-depth experience in the area, as well as rigorous Baseline Assessments, it became clear that even if women or girls knew of existing supports and programs, the vast majority would opt not to report abuse as they feared that it would result in the perpetrator (most often a male family member) going to prison or facing consequences that could divide the family or lead to the removal of a family breadwinner. This reality made it clear that a Restorative Justice approach was essential to bringing the pervasive gender-based violence into the light so it could be addressed in a way that would have lasting healing outcomes for all.

What is Restorative Justice?

Rooted in age-old indigenous practices, a restorative justice approach applies principles and practices centered on promoting compassion, respect, taking responsibility, healing, and strengthening relationships. Unlike the more common “retributive justice” approach (which focuses almost solely on punishing the perpetrator), the goal of a restorative justice approach shifts the focus from punishing individuals after wrongdoing to repairing harm and preventing recurrence to the benefit of the victim, perpetrator, and their community.

A common misconception is that a restorative justice approach means no consequences for the perpetrator and denies the victim the justice they deserve. However, true restorative justice programs not only increase offender compliance with restitution and decrease re-offending, but they also increase victim satisfaction, when compared to more traditional, punitive criminal justice responses.

(You can read more on the differences between restorative and retributive approaches to justice here.)

Why was a Restorative Justice approach important to our program?

At REALgirl (SERniña), we strive to trust our local participants, families, and staff to identify their needs, challenges, goals and help shape our response and programs. This includes leading focus groups, one-on-one interviews, meeting with community stakeholders, and consistently listening to and platforming the voices of our participants.

During the feedback and data collection exercises at the beginning stages of our Whole Family Healing Program, one of our most important takeaways in speaking at length with various members of the El Hato community about gender-based violence, was that the vast majority of incidents took place in the home, where the perpetrator of violence was a family member. We also learned that survivors of familial gender-based violence consistently wanted healing for themselves, their family and even for the perpetrator, and almost always did not want to take legal action that could result in incarceration, other serious legal consequences, or having a child taken away. This fear historically pushed victims of violence into silence, especially young girls. When victims suffer in silence, the violence often continues and neither justice nor healing becomes a possibility.

In response to this, we knew we made the decision to incorporate a restorative justice approach in all aspects of our program, which included:

Workshops for girls, boys, women and men.
Therapy sessions for individuals, couples, and families.
Comprehensive violence response services, including legal support, psychological support, and therapeutic support. *

*Ensuring our violence response services were comprehensive was a key innovation of the project, as our research determined that the vast majority of violence response are unilateral in their support. For instance, programs will provide legal support to victims but ignore the psychological trauma victims experience. Or programs will provide psychological support but no legal accompaniment meaning victims will continue to be at-risk and the perpetrator will never be brought to justice.

Often, if a young girl growing up in Guatemala were abused, it is highly unlikely she would know where to go or what supports exist for her. Even if she sought out help from community organizations or the authorities, it is unlikely she would have easy access to the varying supports she needs. Not only are the existing practices ineffective, they also increase trauma and re-victimization. If girl in Guatemala were abused and she wanted legal aid to get a restraining order to protect her from her abuser, she would go to one organization. If there was an on-going threat of abuse and she needed a safe place to stay, she would visit another organization. If she needed medical attention following her abuse, she would visit yet another place. If she wanted counseling services to process the trauma, she would go to another. In this relatively simple yet far too common example of gender based violence, this young girl has been asked to re-live her trauma with at least five separate entities, tell her story to five different people, and place her trust in five different complete strangers at the most traumatic time of her life.

Our comprehensive violence response services however, allowed survivors of violence to access all the support they need to address and overcome violence, abuse and trauma in one place.

The Impact of Implementing a Restorative Justice Approach

The outcome of taking a restorative justice approach and offering comprehensive violence response services strongly validated our decision. Of the 124+ cases of violence that were responded to by the SERniña (REALgirl) team during our initial Whole Family Program testing timeline (2021-2022), only one of the survivors or family members impacted wanted to pursue legal action, despite it being offered free-of-charge with 1:1 support from the SERniña (REALgirl) team.

Through our approach, we also saw the following indicators of violence reduction:

The number of reported cases of violence among participants dropped by 45%
62% of participants reported overcoming a situation of violence as a result of the program
79% of participants reported experiencing less violence in their homes after the program
90% of the women who participated have reported taking concrete action toward their empowerment

When it comes to doing complex and challenging change-making work, it is critical as organizations that we challenge existing solutions which are no longer working, avoid making assumptions about what our participants desire and need, and push ourselves to think outside the box when designing our response. Through in-depth work with individuals and families, conducted in our therapy sessions and workshops, it became clear that what the majority of survivors of violence desired was:

For the perpetrator of violence in their life to be held accountable through honest, direct and healing-centered communication and reconciliation efforts (restorative justice).
To set clear criteria of what they expected from a ‘healthy relationship’ and be able to hold firm boundaries with others in relationships, especially with past perpetrators.
To see real and permanent changes in the behaviors and attitudes of past perpetrators (eradication of violence).
And to be able to find closure from their past trauma, heal past wounds, and be able to move forward with a strong sense of self-value, self-esteem, and empowerment.

Final Thoughts

In the end, choosing to incorporate a restorative justice approach to our girls’ empowerment and gender equity mission proved to be a significant factor in our impactful outcomes. By incorporating a restorative justice approach in our programs, we saw an increase in reporting, requests to access services, and improved indicators of true healing and well-being.

As international organizations, it is critical we step away from dictating what our participants need. Instead, we must prioritize intentional listening to the honest needs, fears, and goals of our participants and let their voices shape how we approach issues, long term solutions, and the design and implementation of our programs. For us at REALgirl (SERniña), this has mean an steadfast commitment to the incorporation of restorative justice practices.

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Why Including Boys & Men is a Critical Part of Our Gender Equity Work

11/13/2023

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“Now I know that women and girls can be our partners in the world. They deserve to have rights and opportunities, and our lives are better when we can work with girls and women as partners.”
- SERniño Program Participant, 2017

These powerful words were shared by a young teen SERniño (To Be A Boy) graduate in 2017, our first year ever running boys programs. He expressed his amazement at the realization that he didn't have to fear “carrying the burden alone” because he, for the first time, recognized that boys and girls, men and women could carry any of life’s challenges together as equals.

Seeing this young boy bravely challenge the long-standing “machismo” culture in his community and country was proof that we were on the right track with our work with boys, and since then, we have only continued to deepen our work with boys and men and see the positive ripple effect of doing so.

Throughout the month of November, we are so thrilled to be sharing the impact of our recent Whole Family Healing Program ((Holistic Three-Pronged Approach to Violence Prevention & Response), funded by the Fund for Innovation and Transformation (FIT) and Global Affairs Canada). If you missed it, you can check out last week’s blog here, which highlights why we began working with whole families.

Our Whole Family Healing Program put into action a number of innovative new practices to most effectively support our mission to create gender equality, reduce gender-based violence, and support girls’ empowerment. Today we will focus on one of our transformative approaches to best advancing the empowerment of girls and women: the critical importance of including boys and men.

Why Include Boys & Men in Gender Equity & Girls’ Empowerment Work?

Similar to many programs that focus on girls’ empowerment, when we launched REALgirl (SERniña), we initially worked exclusively with girls. It quickly became evident that doing so would only allow us to go so far in our mission to support girls in reaching their fullest potential. In 2017, REALgirl (SERniña) began including boys in our Guatemala program, with the launch of our SERniño program.

During our FIT Testing Project we were able to deepen our work with boys and to include men (fathers) for the first time. The results were nothing short of remarkable and we’re eager to share our approach and outcomes so that other organizations and the populations they serve may also benefit.

It is the responsible and ethical thing to do:

Involving boys and men in the mission to achieve gender equality and end gender-based violence is still a new approach. The vast majority of girls’ and women’s empowerment programs focus only on empowering women, ignoring the role boys and men must play in the creation of safe and equitable communities.

The reality is that the vast majority of violence cases have a male perpetrator. Failing to include boys and men is not only less effective, but also dangerous. Girls’ empowerment work equips girls and women with the language, tools, and confidence to advocate for themselves and use their voice. Applied in a context where deeply rooted patriarchal norms often dictate that girls and women are to accept and remain in their subjugated positions, these tools of empowerment can be viewed as a direct threat to the men in their lives, who have historically held power and control over them. If these men react with violence, these dangerous reactions compromise the safety and the lives of the very girls and women we are endeavoring to serve.

At REALgirl (SERniña) we firmly believe that including boys and men in our work is not an “add on”, but a critical component and ethical responsibility of our girls’ and women’s empowerment program.

It is the effective thing to do:

The truth is that in almost all countries in the world, men still hold more power than women. They have greater access to education, better job opportunities, higher incomes, and occupy more seats in leadership and government. There is power in this privilege. When women advocate for justice, rights, and empowerment, they are too often ignored. In countries such as Guatemala, men’s voices still garner more respect. By encouraging men to step up as advocates for girls and women, they are often able to foster greater and faster buy-in from other men (and boys), and their communities at large. In short, to fight this uphill battle without male allies is unnecessary and ineffective.

What specific goals do we have when working with boys and men?

While there are many, we have three main goals when working with boys and men:

To support their personal growth, healing, and genuine empowerment (in depth versus on the surface)
To foster within them a sense of authentic respect for and commitment to valuing, respecting, and advancing the girls and women in their families and communities
To inspire the desire to step up as powerful advocates for gender equity

How do we ‘start the conversation’ and foster authentic buy-in from boys and men?

One of the key learnings of our FIT Testing Project was the critical need to take an approach that speaks to each individual group (girls, boys, women/mothers, and men/fathers). This meant really listening to their expressed needs, challenges, and worries. It is unlikely that most boys and men will engage in gender equity work just because it is the “right thing to do”.

We must engage in meaningful dialogue that helps boys and men to see how they will also benefit in a more gender-equitable society that utilizes the resources and fullest potential of men and women. It is essential to shed light on how the patriarchal paradigm (including limiting gender roles and the disempowerment of girls and women), not only holds back women and girls - but also holds back boys and men, whole families, and communities.

With boys, who are still very much finding their identity and place in society, we have often found an eagerness to be less burdened by patriarchal norms and expectations that limit their full expression as human beings. The notion of girls and women working in partnership to “share the load” can be a profoundly appealing proposition. With boys and men, who are often socialized to keep these sources of vulnerability tucked away, this is a tall order that must be carried out with patience, compassion, and perseverance.

In addition to attending weekly/monthly workshops, boys and men also receive the support of our Family Therapists and Psychologists, multiple of whom are men specially trained in positive masculinity and restorative justice (more on our restorative justice approach next week!)

What offerings and content are included in our programs for boys & men?

Our core boys’ program, SERniño (To Be a Boy), is a parity program to our girls’ program and also runs weekly throughout the entire academic year. The “SERniño” curriculum is built on and in parallel to the girls' curriculum, and offers modules that include but are not limited to content in the following areas:

Critical thinking and active listening
Discovering your true self
Understanding and protecting your rights
Becoming the author of your own story
Identifying and overcoming gender roles
Sexual health for males and females
Bodily Autonomy & Consent
Healthy relationships with self and others

In our new “Whole Family Healing Program”, which was tested through the support of FIT, we continued to run our weekly SERniño programs, but also developed a program for men/fathers which is now called ‘Cosechando Ternura’ (‘Weaving Tenderness’), which provides men with in-depth healing and equity workshops, run on a monthly basis.

In our new ‘Whole Family Healing Program’ programs for boys and men include:

1.    Positive Masculinity workshop programs which run parallel to our girl/women empowerment programs
2.    Specialized healing therapies for boys and men
3. Comprehensive violence response services for male victims of violence
4.    Restorative justice-based programs for male perpetrators of violence (Beneficiaries and local staff all acknowledge this piece of the innovation as a critical component to the project’s success)

What impact have we seen since increasing our work with boys and men?

Overall, since we began including boys in our work in 2017, we have seen steady improvements in our impact indicators. During the FIT Testing project (2021-2022), when we were able to include boys and men in even deeper and more meaningful ways, we were able to see unprecedented levels of impact and improvements in the lives of girls and women.

The number of reported cases of violence among participants* dropped by 45%
79% of participants* reported experiencing less violence in their homes after the Testing Period
73% of participants* reported feeling safer in their homes after the Testing Period
70% of individuals in the Family Interventions Program report improved relationships between spouses after the Testing Period

*The vast majority of “participants” in these impact indicators are girls and women.

These outcomes echo what an increasing number of studies are showing. Though it is still a rare approach, studies show that including boys and men greatly improves the impact of gender equity programs. In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review “the evidence shows that when men are deliberately engaged in gender inclusion programs, 96% of organizations see progress — compared to only 30% of organizations where men are not engaged.”

Consequently, it has only become more clear to all of us at REALgirl (SERniña) that to ensure lasting change when it comes to advancing gender equity and ensuring the safety and empowerment of girls and women – we must include all individuals who make up a community and interact with and impact the lives of girls and women.

Final Thoughts

Far too often in the field of gender equality and girls’ and women’s empowerment – we think we must focus our resources exclusively on girls and women. Though REALgirl (SERnina) has been pushing back on this notion for years, through our FIT Testing Project we were able to prove why: the most impactful way to advance gender equality and the best thing we can do for girls is invest in working with all individuals who are impacting their lives, including boys and men.

Learn more:

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Introducing REALgirl (SERniña)’s New Whole Family Healing Program

11/5/2023

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How we went from working with only girls to engaging whole families and communities

"If you were given $250,000 to advance gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women, what new and innovative idea would you design and implement?"

Those words, a prompt from the Fund for Innovation and Transformation (FIT) funded by Global Affairs Canada, stared at us on our respective computer screens. It was during the unprecedented pandemic “pause” of the planet that our team in Guatemala, and our two co-founders Danielle in Alberta and Anea in California, pondered the transformative potential of a $250,000 grant opportunity.

Never had we been more grateful for Zoom, which bridged the gap of well over a thousand geographical miles between us all; from rural Alberta to Northern California to the hills of Guatemala. A $250,000 grant was something we had only dared to dream of in our first several years, as we worked passionately every day to implement a customized version of our REALgirl Empowerment Program in Guatemala, one of the most dangerous countries in the world for girls and women to live.

Ever since we launched “SERniña” (to be a girl) in 2014, as the REALgirl Foundation’s first-ever Latin American branch, in Guatemala, we had survived on a shoestring budget, funded largely by an annual fundraiser in a small Hollywood Comedy Club, our generous family members and friends, small-sized one-time grants, and the sheer determination to advance the empowerment of girls.

In 2017, Jennifer Buffet’s NOVO foundation (now part of the TIDES Foundation) gave us our first big grant in the amount of $60,000., which enabled us, in just a few short years, to hire and train a larger deeply committed local team of facilitators and earn the respect of the Guatemalan Ministry of Education and an ever-increasing number of local partner schools.

Now, faced with this seemingly “too good to be true” opportunity offered through FIT and Global Affairs Canada, in concert with our Canadian partner, REAL Humanitarian, we dared to dream bigger.

What new and innovative idea would we implement if we had the resources to do so? In some ways, our whole approach to girls’ empowerment has always been “innovative”. By design, our program has been unique in our commitment to addressing the root causes of the disempowerment of girls and women. As opposed to just trying to counter messages of misogyny with surface messages of “girl power”, our approach is built on bringing awareness to the myriad messages deeply embedded in the patriarchal paradigm that seep through into our family systems, cultural norms, school curricula, religious institutions, and media. We have always believed that meaningful and lasting change is only possible when the root of the problem is brought into the light, looked at through a critical lens, and addressed.

When we first started SERniña, like many girls’ empowerment-focused organizations, we worked exclusively with girls. But we quickly learned that advancing the empowerment of girls can only go so far when you work exclusively with girls. In fact, it is not only less effective to work with girls exclusively, but also, potentially dangerous, and even life-threatening, to provide girls with language and tools of empowerment without also educating boys and other community members about the limitations and dangers of gender inequity. Consequently, we added boys’ programs to our SERniña offerings in 2017.

Now faced with a pandemic, lockdown, and countless unprecedented challenges, we reflected on how we could further evolve our mission, to better meet the needs of the girls we served. For years, we have seen the need to go deeper: to diversify our services and reach more individuals in the lives of the girls in our programs. Through the potential support of FIT, we began to envision a deepening of our existing programs to access, educate, and support so many other members of a girl’s world, and launch a fully “holistic” program. We engaged in many “Imagine if…” conversations about how much more impactful our work could be if we expanded our mission to include whole families of girls. After all, changing a long-standing status quo demands that all the participants who are maintaining it be educated and guided to co-create a new construct that will benefit more members of our human team.

While we began ruminating on a more “holistic” approach to our work, the need to do so was also becoming ever more apparent: rates of gender-based violence in the homes of our girls, as well as around the world, were on the rise, and the pandemic threatened unprecedented rates of dropout and teen pregnancy rates for girls.

As needs increased, the girls and families we served began to advocate more and more for increased support. Mothers were asked to join in on their daughter’s workshops. Teachers were asking to learn about navigating incidents of violence. And across the board, individuals were requesting more in-depth individual support for victims of violence.

Guided by the glaring needs and requested support from the local communities we serve in Guatemala, as well as the inspiring prompt from the Fund for Innovation and Transformation, our Holistic Three-Pronged (H3P) Approach to Violence Prevention and Response (“Whole Family Healing Program”) was born. In practice, it would engage whole families and provide families and communities-at-large with in-depth, long-term, and holistic support programs.

After a rigorous application process, in March 2021 our dream came true, and we were awarded $242,000 CAD of funding to implement and test our innovative Holistic Three-Pronged (H3P) Approach in Guatemala.

Our Fund for Innovation & Transformation Testing Project

For our FIT Testing project, we set out to test the impact and effectiveness of a holistic, family-centered, gender equity-focused violence prevention and response program in Guatemala.

A key innovation in the design of our project was for it to be “Holistic” in a multi-faceted sense, to address gaps we had identified in existing programs and services. Specifically, our FIT Testing Project was:

Holistic in Reach: Through the support of FIT we were able to run programs and engage all members of participating families (boys, girls (children and teens), mothers and fathers), and key community members (community leaders, partner organizations, and educators).
Holistic in Offerings: For the FIT project, we continued our proven weekly workshop program and also tested out new and more in-depth approaches, including individual, couple’s, and family therapy, healing sessions, skill-development sessions, and holistic violence response services.
Holistic in Content: A defining feature of the REALgirl/SERniña program is our holistic curriculum which covers all of the major challenges and needs impacting the lives of our participants, as opposed to just one subject area. For the FIT Testing Project, we implemented our existing holistic curriculum, and also further enhanced it by embedding more healing and empowerment components focused on restorative justice and traditional Mayan healing modalities.

As FIT focuses on short-term, high-impact projects, our FIT Testing Project had to be completed in 15 months, allowing for 6 weeks of baseline evaluations, 12 months of program implementations, and 6 weeks of online evaluations and reporting.

Knowing that to see the lasting change we must go deep, we focused our “FIT Project” on one community, El Hato Guatemala. We chose El Hato as it was one of our longest-standing community partners and we had been running workshops in partnership with the local school since 2014. El Hato is a small, rural, Indigenous mountain-side village with a population of roughly 1,800 people. The average monthly household income is less than $6.75 USD per day, putting households in El Hato well below the poverty line. Patriarchal and machismo attitudes and behaviors are deeply engrained within El Hato society and families; less than 60% of women have any source of income, 36% of pregnancies happen are to teen girls, and of all our partners, we saw some of the highest rates of gender-based domestic violence among our El Hato families.

The Impact

Overall, in fifteen short months, our FIT Testing Project reached 290 individuals directly and provided holistic support to 27 families.

At the start of the project, we set out to answer one key question: “Could we better advance the empowerment of girls and women and reduce gender-based violence and gender inequality, if we began working more holistically and engaging whole families?”

To answer this question, we believe the numbers speak for themselves. After the FIT project…

The number of reported cases of violence among participants dropped by 45%
62% of participants reported overcoming a situation of violence as a result of the program
79% of participants reported experiencing less violence in their homes after the program
90% of the women who participated have reported taking concrete action toward their empowerment

Through this, we wanted to prove that the most effective way of advancing the empowerment of girls was by engaging not just girls, but all individuals who are impacting the world of a girl and have the power to shrink or expand the possibilities of how she could show up in the world. Overall, the quantitative data, qualitative assessments, and day-to-day community observation proved the increased impact and effectiveness of when we work more holistically by engaging whole families and offering all family members more expansive support, including therapy, workshops, and violence response services.

Wrapping Up & Moving Forward

Though our FIT Testing Project wrapped in 2022, our new ‘Holistic Approach’ was only just getting started. Based on the unprecedented positive results of this pilot project and the generosity of new grants and donors, we are thrilled to now be offering this more holistic model throughout 80% of our partner communities and aim to implement it in 100% of them by 2024.

Stay tuned as we continue to share other key learnings, findings, and innovations from our FIT Testing Project in the coming weeks.

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supporting our entire 'Human Team': Why We Include Boys in our Girls' Empowerment Programs

1/20/2020

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Written by Annie Vanderboom
The phrase "toxic masculinity" is used a lot these days, but it's not always clear what it means. In some ways, it's misleading, because it seems to imply that masculinity in and of itself is dangerous or poisonous, or even more oversimplified, that "men are bad." That's certainly not true, and it's not what gender equality advocates actually think or believe.

Actually, we're talking about a very specific form of masculinity: the ideas about how boys and men should think, feel, and act that are dominant in society and accepted as "normal." Once you start looking at how these specific, dominant ideas affect men, boys, their families, and their societies, that "toxic" label starts to make sense. When boys and men are pressured to fit into a single one-size-fits-all role, with few alternatives, the results can be poisonous – for men, for families, and for societies.

That's why SERniña by REALgirl offers two programs for boys, SERniño (REALboy) and SERlider (REALleader), in parallel with their girls' programs. The programs help boys recognize and question society's expectations and make decisions about the kind of men they want to be and how they want to live. It helps them find their own voices to become better partners, fathers, and leaders in their communities – while learning to become more true to themselves at the same time. SERniña's boys' programs aim to help participants realize that there are many tender, egalitarian and valuable ways to be a man.

The myth of the "real man"
A fairly rigid and well-defined set of expectations about what it means to be a "real" man is prevalent in society today. Although specific expectations vary by culture, a standard pattern is recognizable worldwide. "Real men," according to this myth, are supposed to:

Be tough
Hide emotions
Endure pain
Take risks
Provide for their families
Have multiple sexual partners [1]

Rigoberto Ajcalón Choy, a researcher from the Kaqchikel Sololá community in Guatemala, reports that in his community, the culturally-specific specific embodiment of this ideal especially stresses "the importance of [men's] roles as responsible parents and hard workers. The man is the one who goes out to work the land because he has the strength, the skills, the endurance, and the knowledge to work it. A man’s work in the field … protects his wife and his children." [2]

The ideals of masculinity can be formally laid out via laws, religion, and traditions, but are also conveyed through popular culture, families, and interactions with friends and peers growing up and throughout life. Through all these channels, the expectations are accepted as normal and define society's idea of what a "real man" is like.

Consequences for everyone
Multiple problems are created by buying into a standardized, idealized definition of masculinity. First, the assumed dominance of masculinity is at the heart of the imbalance of power between men and women. As Ajcalón Choy explains about his community specifically and gender relations generally, "This assumption legitimizes the subordination of women through cultural practices and institutions. Men have not only developed domination in the home, but also have maintained it in the political, social, and cultural arena. This is evident in the configuration of gender in the workplace, school, and church." [3]

In the same way, damaging and “toxic” views of masculinity are one of the root causes of the disempowerment of women, violation of women’s rights, and the high rates of violence towards women and femicide.

In addition to subjugating women, the myth of "real" masculinity is harmful to men themselves. For example, the Kaqchikel values of good parenting and hard work are undoubtedly positive ideals. But linking them to masculinity means that if men can't live up to them — if they can't have children, or there's not enough work, or they have to migrate away from their families to find work — the men are often faced with questions about their "manliness" and their own self-identities, compounding the stresses they already face and leaving them feeling "depressed and unworthy." [4]

When men feel pressure to live up to the standards described above, they often respond by exaggerating the traits they're trying to demonstrate, resulting in:

Lack of connection with their emotions and their true selves
Substance abuse
Violent behavior
Work-related stress
Participating in illegal activities to earn money
Homophobia
Misogyny
Isolation from family
Poorer health and earlier death [5]

It's clear that when we don't question and challenge the stories we as a society tell ourselves about gender roles, everyone suffers.

SERniño interventions

It's only recently that masculinity has been recognized as the flip side of the gender equality coin; for a long time, activists focused mainly on changing ideas and policies regarding women and girls. But it's clear that boys' and men's identities and social roles are as malleable as women's, and it only makes sense that well-rounded, self-realized boys and men are crucial allies in the struggle for gender equality. And, boys and men deserve to be able to know, feel, and express their true and complete selves, just as girls and women should be able to!

The United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank have all called for engaging men and boys in gender equality [6, 7], and the SERniño and SERlider programs were created to help answer that call. The programs are run by local young men, age 19 to 30, who come from the communities they're working in, and who've been trained extensively in the SERniño philosophy. The facilitators meet with boys and young men for a year, serving as relatable, positive mentors and role models.

Building on and in parallel to the girls' curriculum, the SERniño program offers modules on:

Critical thinking and active listening
Discovering your true self
Understanding and protecting your rights
Becoming the author of your own story
Understanding money and the importance of saving
Identifying and overcoming gender roles
Puberty for males and females
Respecting your own body
Healthy relationships with self and others
Sexual and reproductive health
Reclaiming your inner strength and ancestry

The goals of SERniño and SERlider are to cultivate fair and rational young men who are able to overcome the strict gender roles set by society and understand how these narrow gender roles not only negatively affect girls and women, but also limit their ability to grow into full, healthy men.

By developing emotional intelligence and self-awareness, and putting into practice critical thinking skills, each SERniño participant learns to choose his own future and make decisions for himself instead of simply following the limiting gender roles set by society. And, SERniño participants learn to see the unique value of women in society and understand the benefit of working in partnership with girls and women, becoming full and equal partners in society, in their families, and in life.

Learn how to get involved with or support SERniña and SERniño programs today!

Sources
1. Greene, Margaret E., et al. Masculinities, Social Change, and Development. World Development Report 2012 Background Paper. World Bank. p. 2.
2. Ajcalón Choy, Rigoberto. Examining Masculinity and Gender in Kaqchikel Sololá, Guatemala. Portal: Web Magazine of LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections. University of Texas at Austin. March 18, 2016. p. 14
3. Ajcalón Choy, p.13
4. Greene, et al.
5. Greene, et al. p.5
6. Evolving Men: Initial Results from the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES). International Center for Research on Women and Instituto Promundo. 2011. p.10.
7. Green, et al. p. 26.

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Five brave SERniña Girl Leaders Speak Up About Consent

8/29/2019

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Written by Erik Pocasangre & Annie Vanderboom

SERniña (by REALgirl) is proud to be a thought-leader and member of several socially focused Guatemalan networks. RIDAVS (Interinstitutional Network for Referral and Assistance to Victims of Sacatepéquez), promoted by the Public Ministry of Guatemala, is one of these networks. Alongside other NGOs, civil organizations, and public and religious institutions, SERniña helps develop RIDAVS' social and wellness activities to support the communities of Sacatepéquez, the department in which Antigua and surrounding towns are located. (For our Northern readers, a department is analogous to a state or a province.)

On September 21, 2018, SERniña was one of the leading organizers to help launch RIDAVS' first Sacatepéquez Youth Congress. Nearly 300 youth attended, representing the majority of cities and villages in the department. SERniña collaborated with WINGS Guatemala — recognized for their work in sexual and reproductive health — to lead an engaging workshop on affirmative consent and pregnancy prevention in adolescents.

Over 300 youth from across Sacatepequez participated in RIDAVS' first Sacatepéquez Youth Congress. Alongside WINGS, SERniña provided Affirmative Consent "mini workshops" to all 300 over the course of the day. SERniña Director of Operations, Erik Pocasangre, also sat on the discussion panel of the event.

Girl Leaders step up

One of the objectives of the Congress was that the young people who attended would convey new information to their peers, lead initiatives to spread the word with peers in their communities, and inspire administrators and leaders within their schools to support their initiatives. After attending the SERniña/WINGS workshop at the RIDVAS congress, Oneida, Lesbia, Mirna, Séfora, Ale, five enthusiastic change-makers of INEB School of Santiago Sacatepéquez stepped up to the challenge.

SERniña Director of Operations and RIDAVS Liason Erik Pocasangre worked alongside the girls for two three-hour sessions to review key material and create their plan of action to diffuse information they'd learned about affirmative consent and pregnancy prevention to youth in their school community.

The girls decided that they would lead mini-workshops for their peers. The planning and implementation of the workshops was a learning experience in and of itself, as the five girls had to develop confidence in themselves and their voices and learn to trust their ability to be leaders of change.

During the planning sessions, the girls participated in activities to discover their truest selves and their strengths, uncover the vital force that self-love brings, recognize some of their fears, and face them with courage. They reflected on themselves and the collective feelings of youth.

Those hours of hard mental and creative work allowed the girls to recognize the power we all have to create, to form, to have intentions, feelings, and dreams and bring them to life. The girls' workshop preparation reaffirmed that their abilities are without a doubt powerful and wonderful.

Erik, Oneida, Lesbia, Mirna, Séfora, Ale worked together for 6 hours (2 three-hour sessions) to plan review all key material and plan out an engaging and dynamic workshop for their peers.

These five all-star girls went above and beyond to step up as leaders. Even after their planning sessions with Erik, they continued to prepare materials, conduct research, and strengthen their knowledge on the issues. They asked their mothers and grandmothers for support. In Guatemala's conservative culture, this was a particularly brave act, but they found that it prompted much-needed but often too taboo conversations to flourish in their homes. And some mothers and families got on board, even taking their daughters to clinics and info centers to get more materials and information.

The girls' planning culminated in a three-hour workshop for a group of 30 girls and boys in their school. It was the first time that the girls were in front of that many of their peers, articulating the importance of sexual health education and consent — topics that are still very taboo in Guatemalan society.

In Guatemala, it is not easy or common to speak about the body through a lens of freedom of expression and choice. It's hard and scary for almost any teenager to talk about self-love, sexuality, bodily autonomy, harassment, abuse prevention, healthy relationships — and even more so here.

Oneida, Lesbia, Mirna, Séfora, Ale show off the poster they designed and created to support their Consent Presentation. The words on the poster indicate the key concepts and indicators of affirmative consent.

Difficult but necessary conversations

The reality is that young people in Guatemala are highly vulnerable to becoming victims of toxic relationships and physical and sexual violence. The numbers are alarming. Thousands of adolescent children are sexually abused by relatives every year, and 89 percent of rapists are family members. Of those, 30 percent are parents.1 In the first six months of 2019, there were over 700 cases of girls under 14 becoming pregnant as a result of statutory rape, and over 66, 000 teen girls became pregnant overall. It is important to note that most teen pregnancies go unreported in Guatemala, so the real numbers are much higher. 2 This problem needs to be addressed in depth and comprehensively. At SERniña, we believe that comprehensive sexual health education for both girls and boys is the key to changing those numbers.

For each of the girls, the drive to talk to their peers about consent and sexual safety was born of the concern they feel for their classmates. Their goal was to help other youth better understand and deal with the consequences of the decisions they make about their lives and their sexuality.

As a youth program, SERniña’s investing in the potential of youth is our driving force. We believe that the next generation will change Guatemala and the world.

Working with youth renews our hope in the future, while at the same time reminding us to recognize the capacity, wisdom, and strength that allow young people to begin to make decisions for their own autonomy and authenticity. Through our workshops and programs, we hope to give youth the tools to serve as empowered and brave community leaders.

The Ripple Effect

We are so proud of One, Less, Mirna, Séfora, Ale, for enthusiastically deciding to take on this challenge. They created a complete workshop, acquired new information, practiced sorority, strengthened their leadership skills and confidence, and generated tools that will allow them to continue to share important information with people in their community and beyond. They set a goal and achieved… with independence, hard-work, and resiliency. These five girls planted a seed for change that will radiate throughout their school and community for years to come.

Beyond the crucial sexual health information they shared, the girls also showed their entire school community that girls, and youth in general, have a voice. They demonstrated by example that young people are able to lead others and create remarkable positive change.

We hope that not only do these five change-makers continue to thrive, but that their bravery also inspires other young girls around them to believe in themselves, use their voice, and know their powerful potential to become the change that our world needs!

Erik, Oneida, Lesbia, Mirna, Séfora, Ale, and their school peers pose for a picture after participating in the Consent Presentation led by our five young leaders.

Sources

1. Bevan, Anna-Claire. Guatemala has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Latin America, and it’s getting worse. The Tico Times. June 16, 2014. http://ticotimes.net/2014/06/16/guatemala-has-the-highest-teenage-pregnancy-rate-in-latin-america-and-its-getting-worse
2. OSAR Guatemala: https://osarguatemala.org/embarazos-y-registro-de-nacimientos-de-madres-adolescentes-ano-2019/

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Why Guatemala? A UNIQue Program In A Unique Country

7/23/2019

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By Annie Vanderboom

As many supporters might know, SERniña's parent program, REALgirl®, is an international program based in the United States, with camps and workshops in the U.S., Hong Kong, and the U.K. SERniña is REALgirl's first expansion into Latin America, and the Guatemala program is customized to meet the unique challenges that girls and women face in this part of the world.

Guatemala's history and current social, political, and economic circumstances pose a number of challenges that make life particularly hard, especially for women and girls. Addressing these difficulties requires a multi-pronged approach; SERniña contributes with a curriculum designed to meet Guatemala's unique obstacles by recognizing what makes the country so special and building on its strengths.

A History of Conflict

From the time of European contact, and well before, Guatemala has faced conflict in many different forms. It's home to 23 unique ethnic Maya groups, each speaking its own unique language — plus the Afro-descendant Garifuna people on the Caribbean coast, who arrived 1800s with their own heritage, culture, language, and traditions. For centuries, these groups made alliances and enemies. They migrated, traded, intermarried, bickered, and at times, went to war.

After the conquest, Guatemala became the capital of Spain's Central American settlement, and its people were at the epicenter of colonization. Ethnicity, religion, gender roles, ancient livelihoods and lifestyles – every aspect of society was upturned and dragged into a constant process of conflict, resistance and negotiation that continues today.

In the 20th century, Guatemala dealt with a new type of challenge: a 36-year long civil war, now referred to as the internal armed conflict, that began in 1960. Indigenous Maya groups were targeted by the military, and more than 200,000 people were killed or "disappeared" by the Guatemalan government, with another 1.5 million driven from their homes. In 1999, the UN recognized the violence as genocide. [1]

Women and girls were particularly affected. The military used rape as a systemic weapon, and over the course of the conflict, more than 100,000 girls and women were the victims of various government forces. [2]

Lasting Effects

Guatemala and its people are still reeling from more than 500 years of colonization, exploitation, and war. Although the peace accords were signed in 1996, many Guatemalans feel that the conflict is far from over. Women and girls still struggle under a rampant machismo culture and a patriarchal society that seeks to oppress them through conservative gender norms and sexual and physical violence.

Data on Guatemala is rare and often dated, but a few facts make the challenges clear:

UN Women reports that in 2013, 748 women lost their lives to violence, a 10% increase compared to 2012. On average, that's 2 deaths per day; violent deaths in men — even if they are 10 times higher — had a noticeable decrease in the same period. [3]
98% of murders of women (femicide) go unpunished. [3]
Guatemala ranks 127th out of the 189 countries world-wide in gender equality; in Latin America, only Honduras is more unequal. [4]
Guatemala's Human Rights Office reports that sexual abuse is rampant and 89% of cases are perpetrated by family members, a contributing factor to the rise in teen pregnancies. [5]

The social effects, social and psychological trauma inflicted by war take generations to heal, and the emotional trauma can have inter-generational effects. Psychologist coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Guatemala, Mayra Rodas, says, “Women are treated as objects, which can be taken. To be a woman here is like being garbage. This is what our patients tell us.” She identifies fear as a debilitating psychological consequence of sexual violence. [6]

A Brave New Generation

Guatemala is often called "the land of eternal spring." Despite its dark history, it might also be called "the land of eternal hope." Children born when the Peace Accords were signed in 1996 are 23 years old today: the first generation not to remember first-hand the fear that was an everyday part of life for their parents and grandparents. Many of these young people – including SERniña leaders and facilitators – are dedicated to bringing real change to their country.

Often, they draw strength and inspiration from the very characteristics for which their families were targeted in the past: their rural upbringings, their Mayan heritage, and their roles as powerful, forward-thinking youth. SERniño Program facilitator Marcelo describes some of the traditions that provide the foundation for his life and work:

"As a Maya Kaqchikel youth from a conscientious, loving, harmonious, and sociable family, I feel proud of my country; I'm also proud of the community where I grew up and spent my childhood. I'm originally from and still live in Tecpan, Guatemala, and I'm especially proud of the flora and fauna that is still preserved in Tecpan's forests.

I really appreciate my country's Maya cultures, our hardworking people in the agricultural fields, the woman weavers, artisans, and diverse languages.

As a family, we celebrate the festival dates of the year, most of all the festival for the patrón saint of the town on the fourth of October. People visit from far-away communities and buy typical candy, food, and clothes and play games at the fair.

The first and second of November is when we visit our departed loved ones. Every family makes lunch in the cemetery to remember their loved ones who've passed. We harvest corn to make different types of traditional food."

SERniña staff having some fun while celebrating at 2018 year-end festivities!

SERniña staff sitting in circle a their 'Nahual and Maya Culture' training with Sanar Conciencia - X'tuxinik.

Tecpan community facilitator Jackelin agrees: "I'm proud to belong to the Maya Kiché ethnic group and to enjoy the folkloric arts of each town. What I love about Guatemala is that it's unique in being a country with various cultures and traditions that make the different communities beautiful."

Others look back to the country's long and complex history to build a vision for the future. Boys Program coordinator & SERniño facilitator Luis Erick says, "I'm proud to be Guatemalan because it gives me generosity, honesty, sincerity and a passion for the earth. I'm proud to be Guatemalan because the people born here have always fought to make better lives. Science was born here, and some of the oldest cities of the world. I'm proud to be Guatemalan because Guatemalans can do anything, we have great wisdom, and we see the humor in everything and everything makes us laugh."

Girls' program coordinator and facilitator Ale Celeste gives a powerful explanation of how the turmoil of the past guides her work today:

"Beyond proud, I feel grateful to have been born in a land that knows how to resist, organize, and fight. All the violence that we've faced as a country has been exercised largely against girls and women. This is why I name and celebrate the struggle and resistance of my sisters, women whose words and actions weave a path for everyone, making a better life possible through justice, healing, kindness, and sisterhood in the dignified way of life put forward since our ancestors' times. Guatemala has a female face.

I celebrate Guatemala's diversity in all its forms; I rejoice in the water and the wind that fill us with home; I celebrate the smiles of little girls and the strength of my sisters."

Girls' Program Coordinator, Ale, congratulates SERniña participants at our 2018 Grad Ceremony.

Customized Empowerment

Although SERniña arose from the international REALgirl program, the workshops it offers in Guatemala are strategically targeted to meet this country's specific challenges. For example, SERniña emphasizes:

Progressive reproductive health education in a conservative culture. SERniña's comprehensive, high-quality reproductive, puberty and sexual health education has a sex-positive, body-connection emphasis. We not only teach the biological realities, but work hard to break down the culture of shame and taboo surrounding female bodies generally and menstruation specifically. We not only want girls to be healthy and to delay pregnancy, we want them to be comfortable and confident with their own bodies and their own self-care and to develop assertive communication skills and bodily-autonomy.
Teaching why education matters. SERniña facilitators constantly reinforce the importance of education. The program explicitly teaches that education is the most reliable factor that allows people to create their own paths in life. This message is driven home in every aspect of the curriculum.
Meeting locally identified needs. We're always working toward collaborating more with schools and families. When we do, we ask schools to identify their particular needs, and offer specialized services in response. As each local program grows, SERniña's Living Curriculum ensures that we address new needs and challenges as arise.

These core values and dynamic strategies allow SERniña to grow and change with the girls it serves, responding nimbly to Guatemala's unique and evolving challenges and providing a specialized, strategic service like no other organization in the field.

Support our unique mission today with a one-time or sustaining donation to SERniña.

Sources

1. Holocaust Museum Houston. Genocide in Guatemala. https://www.hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-guatemala-guide/
2. de Pablo, Ofelia; Zurita, Javier; and Tremlett, Giles. Guatemalan war rape survivors: 'We have no voice.' The Guardian. 28 July 2011. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/28/guatemalan-women-mass-rape-give-evidence
3. UN Women: Americas and the Caribbean. Guatemala. http://lac.unwomen.org/en/donde-estamos/guatemala
4. United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Reports. Table 5: Gender Inequality Index. http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII
5. Bevan, Anna-Claire. Guatemala has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Latin America, and it’s getting worse. The Tico Times. June 16, 2014. http://ticotimes.net/2014/06/16/guatemala-has-the-highest-teenage-pregnancy-rate-in-latin-america-and-its-getting-worse
6. Doctors Without Borders. Guatemala: Treating sexual violence, breaking the cycle of fear. July 20, 2009. https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/what-we-do/news-stories/news/guatemala-treating-sexual-violence-breaking-cycle-fear

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When Girls Do Well, Everyone Wins: How Investing in Girls and Women Pays Off

5/20/2019

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By Annie Vanderboom

SERniña envisions a world where all girls not only recognize the unique and valuable contributions they're capable of making, but are active agents of change in society and in their own lives.

In other words, SERniña works toward a version of society in which girls have the same types of choices boys do — to decide what paths they'll take and how they’ll contribute to their families, communities, and country. To decide for themselves how they'll make the world a better place.

SERniña has set this goal for two reasons: First, it's the right thing to do. Working from a philosophy grounded in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, SERniña believes wholeheartedly in the "dignity and worth of the human person, and in the equal rights of men and women and [has] determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."[1]

Second, SERniña recognizes that supporting progress and equality for girls and women isn't only a moral or ethical question; it's a practical one. Research and real-world analyses have shown over and over that when women do better, everyone does better. Investing in girls and women isn't a metaphor. It's a proven, measurable strategy to improve the well-being and livelihoods of people everywhere.

The Numbers Are Clear

When women and girls have equal access to education and economic resources, change happens on two levels. On the 'micro' level, individual people live longer, earn more, and have higher standards of living:

Research shows that children are 20% more likely to survive when their mothers are in charge of the family's finances. [2]
The World Bank has found that girls earn 18% more money for every extra year of secondary school education than they would have without it. [3]
Half of Guatemalan women are married by the age of 20, and 44 percent become mothers by the same age. [4] But girls who have seven or more years of education end up postponing marriage by four years and having two fewer children. [5]
Overall, the World Bank has seen that "better-educated women tend to be healthier, participate more in the formal labor market, earn more, give birth to fewer children, marry at a later age, and provide better health care and education to their children." [3]

On the 'macro' level, women are economic winners, too:

On average, working women put 90% of the money they earn back into their families to provide "food, health care, home improvement, and schooling for themselves and their children," creating an 'upward spiral' of success. [6] Men, in comparison, usually reinvest about 35% of their earnings. [7]
The McKinsey Global Institute calculates that if women's economic participation were equal to men's, the global GDP would rise $28 trillion in 10 years — about as much as the economies of the US and China combined. [8]
If Guatemalan women had equal economic participation, in 10 years the Guatemalan GDP would grow by 46%, or $40 billion, or $2,460 per person. [9] In a country with an average per capita income of $4,060, that's a big deal. [10]
If Guatemala even closed its economic gender gap at the same rate as its most-equal neighbor in Latin America (Chile), the economy would grow by $8 billion in 10 years [9] — and as we've seen, women pay those gains forward by reinvesting in their families.

Social Equality Comes First

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) called its 2015 report "the most comprehensive mapping of gender equality to date." [8] The report didn't just put forth remarkable economic projections. It also made a profound — if not surprising — conclusion: Economic equality for women is not possible without equality in society and in attitudes and beliefs about women's roles and abilities.

The link is clear. MGI found that "virtually no countries with high gender equality in society [have] low gender equality in work." In other words, when countries develop gender parity in society, they can expect to see the associated economic rewards. MGI therefore identified multiple types of interventions that can build economically and socially gender-equal societies. That's where SERniña and organizations like it come in.

SERniña's diverse workshop programs build exactly the types of skills that MGI recommends, including:

Capability building. MGI calls for "after-school programming for girls that mixes socializing and peer support with… education, pregnancy and drug-abuse prevention, media literacy, economic literacy, and sports participation." Basically, SERniña to a T! The girls' programs include modules on:

Critical thinking
Using your voice
Goal setting
Creating a media filter
Overcoming gender roles
Menstruation and puberty
Sexual and reproductive health
Avoiding and escaping abuse
Financial literacy

…all taught through a variety of activities including arts and crafts, yoga, meditation, dance, self-defense, theater, games, guest speakers, group discussion, and more.

Advocacy and shaping attitudes. MGI states that "acting on this front is a priority through, for instance, programs to engage individuals and communities in dialogues; the promotion of role models, support, and peer groups for women…." SERniña was built around these goals. Its girls' programs devote several modules to helping young women identify their own voices, goals, and paths, while the boys' program helps participants develop new attitudes to hear, accept, and dialogue with girls.

SERniña empowers girls to reach their highest potential… an investment like no other!
Invest in girls today with a one-time or sustaining donation to SERniña.

Next month, learn why Guatemala needs organizations like SERniña.

Sources
All websites accessed May 15, 2019.

1. United Nations. Universal declaration of human rights. https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

2. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Investing in women and girls: The breakthrough strategy for achieving all the MDGs. June 2010. http://www.oecd.org/social/gender-development/45704694.pdf

3. Yong Kim, Jim. To build a brighter future, invest in women and girls. World Bank Blogs: Voices. March 8, 2018. https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/build-brighter-future-invest-women-and-girls

4. Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Why is Guatemala's teen pregnancy rate so high? June 17, 2015. http://www.coha.org/why-is-guatemalas-teen-pregnancy-rate-so-high/

5. USAID. Why invest in women? https://www.usaid.gov/infographics/50th/why-invest-in-women

6. World Economic Forum. Why women make the best tech investments. January 20, 2014. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/01/women-technology-world-economy/

7. Clinton Global Initiative. Empowering girls & women. https://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/phlntrpy/notes/clinton.pdf

8. McKinsey Global Institute. The power of parity: How advancing women's equality can add $12 trillion to global growth — Executive summary. April 2016. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/the-power-of-parity-advancing-womens-equality-in-the-united-states

9. Council on Foreign Relations. Growing economies through gender parity. 2019. https://www.cfr.org/interactive/womens-participation-in-global-economy/

10. World Bank Group. Data: Guatemala. 2019. https://data.worldbank.org/country/guatemala

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Every Girl has a Brave Voice: Aracely's SERniña Story

10/25/2017

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“SERniña taught me that every girl has a brave voice, and that we can be positive despite many criticisms and problems.” - Aracely

Aracely was in grade six when her parents told her that she wouldn’t be able to go to school anymore. They would continue to pay for her brothers’ educations, however in the remote, isolated community of El Hato, the belief that women and girls belong in the home was widely accepted. Her role was no longer as a student, rather to become someone’s wife and start a family.

Even though this attitude towards girls is common where Aracely lives, she was still devastated at the idea of dropping out of school. However, she had seen this happen around her for her entire life. The traditions that come alongside gender roles run deep in her village. Girls and women’s abilities to thrive are quashed by dominant machismo perspectives. Why would things be any different for her? Aracely’s dreams of continuing her education began to fade, and she prepared herself to leave school.

Until one day, as part of their class curriculum, Aracely took part in a SERniña workshop. For the first time in her life, she was hearing messages of female motivation and empowerment. She was learning that she had the ability to change her life on her own, and began to learn skills such as budgeting, and goal-setting to make a future more attainable. Aracely found the sexual and reproductive health workshops especially helpful because:

“We do not get the information anywhere else. I did not understand anything before and was confused. This module is really important because many girls are having sex and do not know if they will get pregnant or not, get an STI or that many contraceptive methods do not protect you 100%. Family Planning is a hard topic because so many young boys and girls are getting pregnant but they do not understand the consequences - they will not be able to complete their studies, nor manage their finances. But, with SERniña I believe less girls will become pregnant.” - Aracely

Initially, Aracely was too shy to even share her name in class. Like many young women in her situation, she struggled to find the voice she had been given. After several workshops, she began to discover that her voice was loud, intelligent and full of ideas. Before long, she had gained valuable public speaking and idea sharing skills, as well as built the confidence in herself, her ideas, and her contributions and she began to share her opinions with others.

As she herself says, “SERniña is important for girls so they can learn more about their future and plan to have a family at a more appropriate age. It is especially important for indigenous girls whose parents often do not let them study.”

It didn’t take long for Maricela (Aracely’s SERniña facilitator) to see her potential, and start working with her one-on-one. Maricela worked very hard to keep Aracely in school to study her core classes, and continue with the SERniña program. After just over a year with SERniña she truly embodied a strong, confident, self-advocating REALgirl. So, when she showed up at the SERniña office, resume in hand, confidently advocating for why she thinks she would be a good addition to the SERniña team as an office assistant, it was an offer impossible to refuse. She explained that she wanted a part time job with SERniña to be able to pay her school fees as her parents would not; she did not want to clean homes for less than minimum wage like her sisters and cousins; and most importantly because “SERniña transformed her and she would not be here if it weren’t for SERniña’s messages and support. It would be her dream to contribute in any way to the program.”

Though it was not easy, Aracely persisted and finished the 2016 school year and is set to also complete the school year in 2017.

Aracely is now working as a SERniña intern once a week earning enough money to save for continued education. Furthermore, she continues to build her leadership skills, as an Apprentice Facilitator with one of Maricela’s groups, and as a participant of the SERlideresa workshop.

With SERniña’s support, Aracely has already opened a bank account to save her earnings for next year as she hopes to go to trades school.

“Thank you SERniña! My life has changed so much. Before the program I was shy and quite careless, but am improving every second. Now I am not careless and I know to use my brave voice, and I am being positive so I can accomplish all that I have planned for the future" -Aracely

We want Aracely's story to be the norm and not the exception for girls in Guatemala. At SERniña (by REALgirl) we are strive to guide each girl to become the positive changemaker in her life and to reach her highest potential.

Bring the life-changing workshops of SERniña to over 600 youth over the next two years!

Help us 'Change The Path' for more girls in Guatemala, just like Aracely by supporting our #ChangeHERpath Online Campaign today!

Donate Now

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More Than Just Girls …. Investing in Global Change: 10 REASONS WHY WE MUST PRIORITIZE SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

9/19/2017

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Despite advancement for women’s rights in Guatemala, there remains a harsh obstacle facing the success and empowerment of young girls in Guatemala: teen pregnancy and the poverty that it perpetuates.

In Guatemala, teen pregnancy is at epidemic levels:

Guatemala has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in Latin America.
50% of Guatemalan girls will have a child before the age of 20, and 20% or more of Guatemalan girls will have 2 children before the age of 18.
In Guatemala in 2014, roughly 71,000 girls under the age of 19 became pregnant, from that percentage 5,119 were girls under the age 14.
Less than 40% of sexually active women aged 15–19 use a contraceptive method.

Photo: Marysol Reyes

The above stats make it very clear why we must include Sexual and Reproductive Health in our programs to better empower girls of Guatemala, but what about the ‘bigger picture’? Girls aside, why is it so important to invest in Sexual and Reproductive Health Education?

At SERniña, we believe access to sexual and reproductive health education and resources is key to creating global change and empowering whole communities. In this blog, we list the Top 10 Reasons Why We Must Prioritize Sexual and Reproductive Health.

1. To lower poverty rates

Poverty is associated with large family sizes, with the poorest countries facing the highest population growth rates. With more children, families living in poverty often cannot provide for their children’s basic needs. Children then go hungry and do not attend school.

If a family has fewer children, and more years between each child, the more they will invest in each child’s food, health and education. When couples choose to practice ‘family planning’ by applying safe sexual and reproductive health practices, they ensure that each of their children has a better chance at success. This allows their children to create better lives for themselves, get a better education, and seek better employment. Thus they are able to advance the financial situations for their family, and generation by generation, finally break the cycle of poverty.

Studies in Latin American countries suggest that meeting the unmet need for family planning would raise the incomes of the poor by 10-20 percent or more in cases of extreme poverty. Research also suggests that a fall of 0. 5% in the birth rate in 45 countries during the 1980s would have led to a one-third drop in the incidence of poverty.

Photo: Marysol Reyes

2. To save lives

Every day, about 1,000 women die of complications from pregnancy or childbirth globally. Nearly all of these deaths are preventable. And for every woman who dies, 20 to 30 others suffer lasting health problems, many of which can be debilitating. In fact, in 2004, unsafe sex was the second largest cause of lost years of healthy life, or burden of disease globally, particularly in less developed countries.

The direct benefits of meeting the need for contraception and for maternal and newborn healthcare include:

Two-thirds fewer unintended pregnancies
70 percent reduction in maternal deaths
44 percent decrease in the death of newborn babies
Unsafe abortions would decline by 73 per cent (from 20 million to 5.5 million (assuming no change in abortion laws)
The number of women with abortion complications requiring medical attention would fall from 8.5 million to 2.3 million

Access to prevention and care could dramatically reduce mortality and ill-health among women and children by preventing transmission of STIs, including HIV, and averting maternal and infant deaths and disabilities. Also, a mother’s death can lead to the death of her baby. Thus, reducing maternal mortality saves the lives of children too. Child mortality could decrease by 13 percent if all women could delay their next pregnancy by at least 24 months. It would further decrease if the interval between births approached 36 months.

3. To improve access to education

When families choose to have fewer children, by applying safe sexual practices, families and governments can spend more per child. This is especially important for girls, whose education is often sacrificed when resources are limited.

By choosing to have fewer, or more spaced-out children, families can ensure each child receives an adequate education, as well as the emotional, mental and physical support they need to be successful. Also, with more controlled and limited populations, governments of developing countries can also ensure they are offering a higher quality public education, and promoting attendance by all children.

Guatemala teen pregnancy is a leading cause of high drop-out rates among girls: It is over three times more likely that a girl will become pregnant (50%) before she turns 19, than it is that she will graduate 9th grade (15%).

By providing sexual and reproductive health education, and teaching safe sex practices, girls can avoid pregnancy and choose to stay in school longer.

4. To empower women in their homes and in the workforce

High fertility rates can be detrimental to a woman’s participation in the labor market, and hence her ability to generate income and improve her bargaining power within the household.

In Guatemala, the average number of children desired by women is 2, however the average number of child per woman is 3.1 and 3.7 in indigenous communities. This is often due to lack of access or knowledge of family planning information and contraceptive options.

Access to sexual and reproductive health information and services offers women the means to control their own bodies and to decide whether and when to have children. Women’s ability to control their fertility can create opportunities for increasing their skills and participating in the workforce or other activities outside the home.

When women are able to seek out employment and their own income, they are better able to advocate for themselves, and their children, in their homes and ensure that their well-being is respected.

5. To promote gender equality

For gender equality to be achieved, women must be able to make free and informed choices about their bodies, including sexual and reproductive health. Having the right to make decisions and to access information and services free of discrimination regarding their bodies, their relationships, and the bearing of children is fundamental to women’s equality and well-being.

Access to sexual and reproductive health services can create opportunities to challenge gender norms that underlie harsh violations of women’s human rights, including violence, discrimination, coercive sex, ‘honor’ crimes, crimes of passion, early marriage and other harmful practices.

A SERniña Participant with 'Bodily Autonomy' Body Paint: My Body. My Rules.

6. To strengthen healthcare systems

Investing in sexual and reproductive health contributes to dramatic improvements in health worldwide and strengthens health systems more generally. In fact, the ability to meet reproductive health needs is a signal indicator of the overall coverage and accessibility of services in the health system.

Training healthcare providers in a rights-based approach, as done so with sexual and reproductive healthcare, can have a positive effect on the quality of care in general. Similarly, improved skills in counselling, which is central to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare, can have an impact in other areas. Likewise, investments in basic and emergency obstetric care can bolster the quality of care and help providers deliver other services more effectively.

Also, with more controlled populations, there is less burden on the quantity of care needed for communities, and more focus, and investment, can be put into the quality of care provided for each patient.

7. To ensure environmental stability.

Population growth due to high fertility results in increased demand for food and natural resources. The population of our planet is growing at unsustainable rates – the stress that the current population growth rate puts on our planet can have devastating effects on individuals, families, communities and the planet as a whole.

A mural in SERniña partner community: El Hato.

Though many women and couples say that they would like to prevent or delay pregnancy, oftentimes they end up with large families, leading to the division of land into smaller and smaller plots. As families struggle to survive, they may see no choice but to clear forests, cultivate steep hillsides and graze their livestock on marginal lands. The result can be erosion, flooding and depletion of the soil, which all contribute to increased poverty, food insecurity and environmental decline.

8. To protect our human rights.

Sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the right to accurate information and education, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have both clearly indicated that women’s right to health includes their sexual and reproductive health. This means that States have obligations to respect, protect and fulfill rights related to women’s sexual and reproductive health.

The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows: "Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”

9. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, The United Nations and its partner countries adopted a set of 17 goals to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all by 2030.

Though many goals are associated with the importance of Sexual and Reproductive Health, two goals (and associated targets) are directly linked to access to sexual and reproductive health education and resources:

Image: B., Dockolova, Lau, K., Barclay, H., & Marshall, A. (n.d.). Sustainable Development Goals and Family Planning 2020 (Rep.). The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) .

10. To lower rates of sexual activity and pregnancy among teenagers.

In comparing abstinence-only programs with comprehensive sex education, comprehensive sex education was associated with a 50% lower risk of teen pregnancy. Sex education programs that: are balanced and realistic, encourage students to postpone sex until they are older, and promote safer-sex practices among those who choose to be sexually active, have been proven effective at delaying first intercourse and increasing use of contraception among sexually active youth. These programs have not been shown to initiate early sexual activity or to increase levels of sexual activity or numbers of sexual partners among sexually active youth.

Students who received abstinence-only programs were shown not to demonstrate any change in their likelihood of delaying sexual activity, and they demonstrated a marked increase in the decision to participate in unsafe sex as only 23% of sexually active teens who received abstinence only programs reported using a condom.

Some people say that teaching kids about contraception encourages them to have sex, but that’s patently false. According to research led by the Guttmacher Institute, "teens who had received instruction on both abstinence and birth control were older at first sex than their peers who had received no formal instruction and were more likely to have used condoms or other contraceptives at first sex; they also had healthier partnerships."

In conclusion, it is clear that the need to provide adequate sexual and reproductive health education, as well as access to related resources, because it is not only essential to the empowerment of young girls, but also to the creation of a stronger, healthier and more sustainable world.

At SERniña we are working to create these changes in Guatemala by providing over 600 youth with comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education over the next two years, and we need your help. Donate today to make this happen:

A donation of $35 covers the cost of 1 student to receive a full year empowerment pack (including personalized journal and workbook, art supplies, and a program t-shirt).
Just $150 covers a FULL scholarship for 1 student to fully participate in our YEAR-LONG Empowerment Program including all costs associated with Facilitator Stipends, Personalized Materials and Educational Resources

DONATE TODAY!

Sources:

Duvvury, N., & Oxhorn, P. (2017.). Understanding the Links Between Sexual and Reproductive Health Status and Poverty Reduction (Rep.). Institute for the Study of International Development.
UNFPA (2010). Sexual and Reproductive Health for All: Reducing poverty, advancing development and protecting human rights (Rep.). United Nations Populations Fund.
B., Dockolova, Lau, K., Barclay, H., & Marshall, A. (n.d.). Sustainable Development Goals and Family Planning 2020 (Rep.). The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) .
Statistics. (2013, December 26). Retrieved May 22, 2017, from https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/guatemala_statistics.html  
(http://lahora.gt/osar-reporta-71-mil-embarazos-en-ninas-y-jovenes-en-2014/)
(Kirby, 2007; Kohler et al., 2008; Lin & Santelli, 2008; Trenholm et al., 2007).
http://www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Feature.showFeature&featureID=1041
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/WRGS/Pages/HealthRights.aspx

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Novo Foundation Awards SERniña (by REALgirl) $75, 000 Grant

8/23/2017

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It is with gratitude and excitement that we announce that SERniña (by REALgirl) is one of Novo's newest partners.

This grant, which will be awarded over three years, will allow SERniña (by REALgirl) to continue to offer its life-changing empowerment programs to over 300 youth each year. It will also allow us to continue to grow by providing more long-term support to our participants through our new leadership programs.

We are honored to be recognized and to have the opportunity to collaborate with the Novo Foundation, an international leader in advancing the rights of girls.

In NoVo's own words: “We believe every girl is born empowered. Together, we can dismantle the structures that prevent a girl from exercising that power, leaving her without an education, vulnerable to violence, and lacking access to opportunities. We invest in girls because they deserve better.”

Join the Movement. Donate Now!

At SERniña, we want to help raise Guatemala from its position as 119th out of 188 countries in gender equality, by addressing locally relevant issues such as human rights awareness, self-esteem and personal agency development, goal setting, development of healthy relationships, overcoming gender roles, and providing information and access to menstrual and reproductive services.

Thanks to NoVo, SERniña will be able to reach more Guatemalan youth, strengthen our programs and support and catalyze more change in partner communities. We thank the NoVo Foundation for their joint commitment to this goal, and their belief in our work.

This transformative investment from the Novo Foundation will allow us to continue to work on reaching our organizational goals:

Reach over 300 students each year
Lower rates of teen pregnancy
Lower drop-out rates for teen girls
Raise overall self-esteem, self-value and personal agency among teen girls
Include boys in the creation of gender-equal communities
Inspire girls and boys to develop the skills, confidence and knowledge needed to create positive change in their lives and communities

Do you want to be part of changing the path for young girls in Guatemala? Click here to learn about our Sponsorship and Donation Options.

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“Guatemala has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world.”​ -World Bank, 2023

What is Restorative Justice?

Why was a Restorative Justice approach important to our program?

The Impact of Implementing a Restorative Justice Approach

Final Thoughts

“Now I know that women and girls can be our partners in the world. They deserve to have rights and opportunities, and our lives are better when we can work with girls and women as partners.” - SERniño Program Participant, 2017

Why Include Boys & Men in Gender Equity & Girls’ Empowerment Work?

What specific goals do we have when working with boys and men?

​How do we ‘start the conversation’ and foster authentic buy-in from boys and men?

What offerings and content are included in our programs for boys & men?

​What impact have we seen since increasing our work with boys and men?

​Final Thoughts​

How we went from working with only girls to engaging whole families and communities

Our Fund for Innovation & Transformation Testing Project

The Impact

Wrapping Up & Moving Forward

Written by Erik Pocasangre & Annie Vanderboom

Girl Leaders step up

​​Difficult but necessary conversations

The Ripple Effect

We hope that not only do these five change-makers continue to thrive, but that their bravery also inspires other young girls around them to believe in themselves, use their voice, and know their powerful potential to become the change that our world needs!​​

Sources

By Annie Vanderboom

A History of Conflict

Lasting Effects

A Brave New Generation

Customized Empowerment

Sources

The Numbers Are Clear

Social Equality Comes First

​​“SERniña taught me that every girl has a brave voice, and that we can be positive despite many criticisms and problems.” - Aracely

“Thank you SERniña! My life has changed so much. Before the program I was shy and quite careless, but am improving every second. Now I am not careless and I know to use my brave voice, and I am being positive so I can accomplish all that I have planned for the future" -Aracely

1. To lower poverty rates

2. To save lives

3. To improve access to education

4. To empower women in their homes and in the workforce

5. To promote gender equality

6. To strengthen healthcare systems

7. To ensure environmental stability.

8. To protect our human rights.

9. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

10. To lower rates of sexual activity and pregnancy among teenagers.

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“Guatemala has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world.”
-World Bank, 2023

“Now I know that women and girls can be our partners in the world. They deserve to have rights and opportunities, and our lives are better when we can work with girls and women as partners.”
- SERniño Program Participant, 2017

How do we ‘start the conversation’ and foster authentic buy-in from boys and men?

What impact have we seen since increasing our work with boys and men?

Final Thoughts

Difficult but necessary conversations

We hope that not only do these five change-makers continue to thrive, but that their bravery also inspires other young girls around them to believe in themselves, use their voice, and know their powerful potential to become the change that our world needs!

“SERniña taught me that every girl has a brave voice, and that we can be positive despite many criticisms and problems.” - Aracely

Want to stay up-to-date with more exciting SERniña news?
Sign up for our newsletter!

Connect with Us: