Gender Equality Puerto Rico Project #36503

Empowering Foster Girls and Teens in Puerto Rico

by Hogares Teresa Toda

Project Report | Aug 31, 2020
They made it!

By Lymaris Marrero-Deya | Project Leader

When a caring and loving environment is provided to a child in need, adversity is handled more effectively and resilience is possible. The girls at Hogares Teresa Toda has shown great deal of strength during this year amid the challenges presented: earthquakes, pandemic, distanced education along with the other emotional baggage that they are dealing with related to their exposure to traumatic experiences. Hogares Teresa Toda is proud to say that our participants have raised to the occasion and have being able to complete the school year with an excellent academic performance.

During the 2019-2020 academic year, Hogares Teresa Toda served a total of seventeen girls of which fourteen completed their academic year at the facility. The fourteen residents who completed their academic year at the facility passed, seven of them with an overall average of 90% or higher and the other seven with averages of 80% or more. Three girls graduated from the eighth grade and participated in the graduation ceremonies following the security measures adopted in leu of the COVID-19 pandemic. A resident graduated from High School and was accepted to the Universidad del Este, Carolina Campus. This student was admitted to the Social Work program. Another participant was admitted to her school's honor roll.

Every residents benefited from supervised study and tutoring at the facility Monday through Friday from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. In this space the residents completed their assignments, special projects and studied for their exams.

A total of 396 hours of supervised study was offered.

Due to the situation of the pandemic, during this academic year (2019-2020) all residents took their classes online through different social platforms from March 2020 (Teams, Google Classroom, Zoom and WhatsApp) . The facility provided each resident access to the internet, computers, and tablets. The participants were offered computer classes at the facility where basic skills of the WORD, POWER POINT programs, among others, were taught.

Hogares had the pleasure of celebrating their achievements in an Award Ceremony taking into account all needed COVID-19 measures.

Along with the educational plan executed to address the pandemic times, the girls continued to have other therapeutic activities like cooking classes, nails workshops and Games activities among others.

We thank our donors for their support and wish them good health in these times of adversity. Thank you fo being present in the life of these girls. You are helping us make the difference.

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Apr 21, 2020
Living in times of Corona Virus

By Lymaris Marrero-Deya | Project Leader

We want to start this report by thanking all our recurrent donors for contributing to improve the quality of life of our girls in the program and wishing them good health and many blessings during this difficult time.

Living in times of Corona Virus has changed the life of all of us and also put another challenge in the life of our foster girls and adolescents. We are working together to take the best out of them. The aim is to developed resilient human beings so when the time comes that they has to face more adversities they are better equipped to succeed.

To better manage the time of the residents at home, we have had to change the daily routine of the girls since schools are closed and education is now provided by distance. The residents are spending more time in the facility. Tutors are coming in earlier to address the educational needs of the residents. We are organizing more extracurriculars activities such as cooking workshops, hand craft sessions, paint and drawing classes, among others.

The challenge that we are facing now is that we are falling short on escort personnel as the girls are now in the house during weekdays. To face this challenge we are extending and redistributing working schedules as much as we can to make sure that the girls are accompanied at all times.

The nurse and other clinical personnel have been providing education about the Corona Virus to the residents, and its preventive measures such as social distancing, hand washing, cleaning surfaces and have good nutritional habits to enhance their immune system. As of today, we do not have any positive case of COVID-19 in our Program. We are following 100% the stay home order and restricting the number of visitors to our premises.

The program psychologist and social workers are working with the residents individually to address any concern or stress related to the situation with the Corona Virus.

We are certain that we will succeed these difficult times and become stronger after the fact.

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Jan 21, 2020
Final Experiences of the year 2019

By Merlinda Millan | Project Leader

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