Empower Under-Resourced Girls in Costa Rica

Hi Friends of Soy Niña!

Today is September 15th and we are actually celebrating Costa Rica´s independence. Many things have been happening in the last couple of months within the organization: we oficially began our clinical psychology program again with the girst who need it the most, three of us attended Women Deliver in Rwanda, we became grantees of the Girls Opportunity Alliance - Obama Foundation (so exciting!), we launched a new video (you can watch it here), and of course: we continue our girls´clubs with over 160 girls actively participating. 

But today, we went to tell you about our volunteer program. Since our beginning we have always counted on the support of so many wonderful volunteers. Our first year we had about 14. Currently, we have more than 70 active volunteers. This includes volunteers and also university interns. In Costa Rica, to graduate from the university you must complete many hours in community service. Although most of them are women, we do have a few men. We have volunteers from different backgrounds, carreers, cities and ages. In fact, over the years, we have not only had volunteers from Costa Rica, but we have had people from abroad living here, even from China and Brazil.

We have had volunteers who can´t wait to turn 18 to join us (you must be over 18 to join) and others that have grandchildren. I always tell others that Soy Niña is a lucky organization because truly, the kindest people always join. Also, the most frequenlty asked question we get on social media (almost on a daily basis) is: I want to volunteer! What can I do?

In Costa Rica, we believe that volunteering is not embedded in our culture as it may be in other larger countries. So, as far as volunteer management, we want to become a model for other nonprofit organizations here. What does tihs mean? We don´t only want to excel in the program that we give out on a weekly basis, but we went to excel in all of our volunteer operations... everything that happens from the moment someone asks about it, to the moment they join, to the moment they leave the program.

Carolina Villalobos joined our staff as a Volunteer Coordinator since June. We couldn´t be happier with her joining the team. Since then, Carolina has not only kept our program active, but created an in-depth overall evaluation for the program. She executed surveys and focus groups and found out what exceeds volunteers´ expectations and what can be improved. We believe that moving forward, our volunteer program will be even more amazing than what is is now. 

Furthermore, thanks to funding from Cummins Costa Rica (a worldwide motor company), we will hire a volunteer management consultant to advise us even more in the next few months. Her name is Carolina Freire. She has a masters degree in volunteer management and created an amazing volunteer platform in Panamá. We are so excited to start working with her.

We now will share some pictures of our volunteers throughout the years and want to take this space to say THANK YOU to all of these individuals, our active and inactive volunteers. Soy Niña would not be here if it weren´t for your love, support, in-kind donations, gasoline, care, time and much more. Thank you for being such an important part of Soy Niña and for inspiring the girls in our program! 

Hi Friends!

Today is May 19, 2023. This year we have been actively having our girls´ club every week since February 2023. In July we will have a two week break. As you may now, we have nine different groups of girls in three different communities. For three weeks out of the month, we facilitate our own Soy Niña curriculum, based, as you know, on life-skills and human rights. For one week out of the month, we have special guests for special sessions. Our three topics for special sessions are: STEAM, Healthy Lifestyles and Environmental Education.

This month, we had STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) sessions. So, we had several different guests including companies, students from the University of Costa Rica, and organizations. For our high school girls, we actually went on a field trip from Desamparados to Escazu, to the offices of Akamai, a digital company that builds, delivers and secures digital experiences. It was such an inredible experience for the 7th-9th graders to be able to get inspired by women engineers and such great facilities! This is what the girls had to say:

- "Everything was very interesting, I want to study something like this and being able to share with the employees motivated me even more."

- "I would like to work in a place like this, I really liked being able to meet and share with them."

For our elementary school girls (1st - 6th graders) we had guests from Ideas en Acción, a nonprofit in Costa Rica that works to empower young girls through technology and also from the University of Costa Rica. We had students finishing careers in physics or different types of engineering facilitate. The girls learned a bit about robotics, programming, rockets, and more. Some girls even had the chance to build a rocket using water bottles. 

We really enjoyed these special sessions and we specially like introducing the participants of Soy Niña to a world of opportunities.