Centro Las Claras: New Opportunity for Teen Moms

In the past months of 2020, the interventions of the specialists in psychology and social work have been aimed at addressing the effects on the different dimensions of the human being caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially personal, family, social and economic ones. This situation has generated many losses and instability, for which the beneficiaries and their relatives have been treated for anxiety, depression, suicide attempts, increased violence in the home, difficulties in family relationships, overcrowding, loss of employment, loss of health, deaths of relatives due to Covid-19, lack of food and supplies at home, positive upbringing and care of children, difficulties in couple relationships, anxiety about not adapting to the new means of school training, anger management and other problematic situations generated by social distancing.

We have managed to keep 44 adolescent mothers in the program, who are highly motivated despite their vulnerable situations. The families have taken refuge in the specialists to help them confront their difficulties and be able to see the future with hope.

Our beneficiaries comment that the levels of violence and family confrontations decreased in their families with the attention by the specialists and with the  they humanitarian support (food). The interventions carried out by the team allow our beneficiaries to achieve the levels of stability that allow them to access, maintain and achieve academic learning to continue within the educational system, which will lead them to achieve their objectives and self-sufficiency through education. 

Each of the 44 adolescent mothers has received computers and a 20GB router each month so that they can access their academic and technical training, as well as all the attention by specialists from the Las Claras program and other benefits offered such as courses, workshops and others.

 The 44 adolescent mothers have managed to continue their studies during this difficult time, which has given us the opportunity to graduate 16 of them and 28 continue their studies to graduate in 2021, this is a great achievement for the organization, since we had to reinvent our way of work completely to ensure that the girls could continue with their studies in a virtual format, but thanks to everyones effort and support it was achieved and the girls have been able to continue their bachelor's degree.

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT! Without you we could not be able to do everything that we do. 

First of all, THANK YOU for your donations and on-going support for The Las Claras Program. Your donations have been key in the support of our program.

In this first half of the year, for the first time in 5 years, our centers had to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had some difficult and stressing months, our girls, the community, the country had other needs and we focused on helping with those needs on the first months of the pandemic. 

We continue our support with our girls by making sure that they had all the basic needs cover, food for them, their families and their babies and pampers for the babies. As well as support from our team. 

However, the months starting to pass and we realize that we had to embrace the new normal, this was not a thing that was going to pass by as fast as we thought. Therefore, we started to plan OUR new normal. 

Our main focus now is to continue our work of educating these teenage mothers and to continue to help with their babies’ development. Being able to this in person, due to quarantine and social distancing, is almost impossible, we realize that our new normal was for us to do our classes and coaching online.

In June, we were able to supply our teenage moms from group #7, each with a laptop computer and access to the internet, and we started online classes, psychological therapies, family therapies and child development. 

Currently, we’re about to give laptops computers and internet access to our 8^th class of the Felipillo center and 2nd class of the Santa Ana center. Furthermore, our groups in the Felipillo and Santa Ana communities will also continue to receive a variety of workshops and classes, on top of the fixed syllabus.

As you can see, we´ve come a long way during these past months. Despite the world´s situation in which we currently live.

The teen mothers at the Las Claras Program will continue to received care, education, and support which allows them to find empowerment previously unknown to them. Furthermore, our own statistics keep showing us the powerful effect of our program within their lives even after graduation, we’re working nonstop and giving our 1000% to break with poverty and teen pregnancy cycles amongst vulnerable areas in Panama.

Once more, we THANK YOU for your continuous support in this quest for a better quality of life for teen mothers and their children. PLEASE keep donating and invite others to join us in this quest with their donation!

More action still to come. Stay tuned :)