A light in the darkness in Soyapango
Ministry of Foreign Affairs El Salvador and our invitation!
This week, we were honoured to receive an invitation from El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend the launch of a brand-new project which has been in development between the United Nations in El Salvador and the Salvadorean government, with a focus on providing opportunities for adolescent girls to further their education.
Early yesterday morning, I had the pleasure of representing Salvador's Hope in the meeting alongside other representatives from around the world to celebrate the launch of the new project in El Salvador.
It was an honour to be invited to this table and to represent not only our charity, but all of you, our faithful and dedicated supporters.
Our invitation was the result of the work we are doing to raise awareness of the issues facing adolescent girls in El Salvador.
We look forward to the future and the possibilities for learning, networking and collaborating with other like-minded organisations and individuals who are working to see a brighter future for the next generation in El Salvador.
Girls of Hope!
Make it stand out
We are delighted to have just had another group of adolescent girls graduate from our Girls of Hope! program. This latest program was run over six weeks in the suburb of Soyapango, an extremely dangerous area with a high level of homicides and gang violence.
The feedback from our participants is that this program has been incredibly empowering!
But, our program is not only having an impact on adolescent girls in the community. From what we can see in these early stages of the roll out is that it’s having an impact on women too.
Our latest group of participants were enrolled in the course fairly quickly by word-of-mouth, women in the community who have heard of our course swiftly responded by referring young girls and their own daughters to be enrolled.
Our program is a light in the overwhelming darkness of gender-based violence. Through our materials we are providing vital information that is not readily available, if at all.
Today, the rate of women murdered in El Salvador remains at one every 24 hrs with an incredibly high percentage of gender-based violence and femicide occurring within interpersonal relationships.
Through Girls of Hope!, we are going to great lengths to educate girls with practical information on the tactics used by abusers to manipulate, exert control, violence and the cycle of abuse in which this can occur.
We could not be more pleased by the personal awareness we are seeing develop in these young girls and how this course is being embraced by women in the community who want a different future for their girls.
Please continue to pray for protection over our partners, participants involved in the course and their guardians as well.
Investing in the future leaders of San Martin
This month, we took the opportunity of assisting these hardworking young people (pictured above) attend a leadership training and discipleship camp.
The annual event is run by our partners Castillo Del Rey and is part of a program to develop and equip young leaders to serve their community. This year, a total of 159 teenagers were in attendance!
The group of teenagers from San Martin have been an instrumental part of the team under the leadership of Ps Douglas and Ps Eunice and have gone above and beyond assisting in the planning and coordinating of outreach events including our Christmas family celebrations.
We are delighted that they have returned from their time away with a renewed sense of purpose and destiny in their lives.
We look forward to seeing them continue to develop their calling and gifts.
Thank you for partnering with us to make all this possible!
Vania Labios
Salvador’s HOPE
