Our Program is multiplying!
Our Program is multiplying!
One year on from the official launch of our Women of Hope initiative, aimed to help combat gender-based violence in El Salvador, we are seeing our violence prevention program ‘Girls of Hope!’ enter a season of multiplication. We could not be more excited!
Over the past year, our investment in the lives of adolescent girls in El Salvador has been fruitful and we have been very encouraged to see the girls embrace and engage with our program.
When we commenced the program, our focus for this generation of young girls was on violence prevention with a strong emphasis on core themes of identity and worth. What we didn’t expect was that the young girls working through this program would go on to also have a positive ripple effect on the lives of the women close to them.
Here is just one of the stories of how our program is impacting the lives of our young participants.
“My daughter is just eleven and has learned a lot from the course, but, the one thing that has impacted her the most is learning that she has value and that she does not have to allow anyone to abuse or mistreat her. Recently, it is all she talks about and is teaching me so many things that I didn’t know about our value and dignity as women. My daughter now wants to become a vet and I have watched her become focused on practically applying all the things that she has learnt because she wants her dreams to come true.”
Rosa, 38
We couldn't have for hoped for more positive results from our first year of running this initiative and it keeps getting better!
Recently, our Women of Hope partners in El Salvador have been experiencing great momentum with our ‘Girls of Hope!’ groups and this has meant that we are now in a position to run our very first facilitator’s training day.
Over the past few weeks, we have been busily developing our Facilitator Training Workbook for leaders who are wanting to run ‘Girls of Hope!’ in their communities.
As excitement has begun to stir amongst church leaders about our program, we have had two of the larger churches in El Salvador consequently jump on board. As of today we now have 20 new group facilitators signed up for our very first Facilitator Training Day!
This is an incredible result as we expect that each facilitator will be running a group with 10 girls each by the end of this year. We are ecstatic at the opportunity to impart a message of hope and value in these young girls’ lives in various regions throughout El Salvador!
Our training day is being held in just a couple of weeks and we would appreciate your prayers for our course trainer and partners who have been working diligently behind the scenes to prepare for an impactful day.
We are thankful for the opportunity to do our part in reaching precious young girls with a message of hope in El Salvador. We could not continue to dream the big dreams for this project without your amazing support and the hard work of our partners in El Salvador running this project- Abigail Association.
Founder and Director of Abigail Association, Janis Watkins, teamed up with Elena Sergiova (program facilitator and trainer), are both incredible women who sacrificially give out of themselves to impart wisdom and strength in all that they do. They both work in difficult circumstances but do so with courage, tenacity and faith committed to seeing significant change occur for women and girls in El Salvador!
As our program continues to grow and gain momentum, we have a couple of opportunities opening up for Women of Hope in El Salvador. We would appreciate and value your prayers around these decisions.
We look forward to bringing you more updates very soon!
Vania Labios
Salvador’s HOPE
