Self-respect for teenage mothers in La Paz, Bolivia

Self-respect for teenage mothers in La Paz, Bolivia

An originally Dutch ex-missionary, Fineke Jansen, has been living and working in La Paz,Bolivia for 12 years now. She started her work with a shelter for drug-addicted men, trying to rehabilitate them. She sometimes placed teenagers in this group as well but due to the different backgrounds and different perceptions of their environment these groups did not mix well.

So she then started a separate shelter for the boys a few years ago; "Mission Adulam". Recently Mission Adulam opened a second shelter, this time for drug-addicted girls, some of whom have children,who are welcome as well. To get the girls back on their feet the shelter offers not only a haven and place of healing but also a basic skills training. Teaching them to look after themselves and their children is the first goal, but the skills might also help them to find jobs. The shelter asked Moments of Joy to pay for an industrial knittingmachine, three sewing machines, an overlock machine, three sets of scissors, a good oven and - just for fun - a television.
Total costs $ 2.705

In Bolivia there are many thousands streetchildren - most of them in the big cities. Not all of them are drug addicted of course but the bigger part is, because surviving on the streets is difficult. Rehabilitating the teenagers is not always easy, certainly not if the children have lived on the streets for a long time. Fineke Jansen writes about her boys: "It is not always easy to reach them through the many wounds they have got in life but is great to see that some of them go back to their families and some of them are able to build an independent life for themselves." Even if you save only one, it is worth it, but our success percentages are certainly not below the national rehabilitation figures."

Recently Fineke Jansen started a shelter for girls, if needed together with their children (15 year old Paula for instance has two children). The philosophy of the shelter is simple: "For women that have lost their self-respect completely nothing is more important than giving them a lasting and profound joy: giving them back their self-respect. We try to do that by offering them very concrete things in the programme. We give them the opportunity to learn - taking one step at the time - to do practical things and reach "small" goals that have a visible result. Making clothes for one of her children, making a tablecloth that we all can use or making other creative things that express her creativity, something that maybe has never before had the chance to emerge. This will make it clear for the woman that she "can really do something". And if they work together - if a group for instance can cook nice food for a birthday together - this will have several good results; they have reached something together, did all do something for one another and can enjoy it together."

And in reply to one of our question she says: "The risk that they will do something like sell new clothes to buy drugs is always present. But the idea behind our project is that the experience of reaching small goals will give positive feelings to a woman that nobody can take away from her - even if she would decide to leave the centre and go back to the streets after a while."
TOTAL 2.705 US$