Raising Hope for Healing Survivors

The lady is originally from San Felipe de Jesus of Antigua Guatemala, she is currently 19 years old. She grew up in a family with 5 siblings and their two parents, being of very scarce economic resources. To make things worse, Rosa is the older sister and she was the one who helped her mother take care of them, sometimes even working cutting wood or selling sweets in the streets.

Rosa had not received academic training and was already 11 years old, could not read or write, and the mother did not worry about that since she (the mother) had been raised in this way. The father of the family was dedicated to drinking alcoholic beverages all the time and he used drugs of all kinds; he never contributed money to the family, he only beat and insulted everyone, all the time, the mother did not present any objection because she was intimidated by him under death threats against her and her children.

However, the most futile and abject act that could culminate the actions of this despicable father, was the sexual abuse of the eldest daughter on more than one occasion, and threatened him with death so that he would not say anything to any person. After about six months, the young lady could not contain her sadness and disappointment in life before such a desperate situation and tried to take her own life, so the mother noticing this, intervened and prevented the attack of her daughter could be avoided .

Faced with this situation, the family mother sought help without caring about the threats of her partner, who at that time already belonged to a gang (called in Guatemala as gang members), but no place offered them a correct orientation. Until the lady heard about Nuestros Ahijados through neighbors who advised her to go, for which she asked for help for her daughter and her other children.

Nuestros Ahijados proceeded through the Legal Department, to denounce the corresponding authorities to initiate a legal process against the father for the crime of sexual and psychological abuse and mistreatment of women, among other things of which he would be accused, for belonging to a gang.

After initiating the process, the authorities found after two months that the father had fled, was captured and prosecuted for his crimes; The project gave all the support in the legal, psychological, medical and academic area to the young lady and all her little brothers, who started studying at the Centro Soñador. The father is still serving his sentence and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

She was the first victim to enter the ITEMP program in year 2, 009 because the living conditions were not good, besides that she works in the dumpster with her sister and her mother, they collected plastic and ate the waste that they found there, they were exposed to some disease as to sexual abuse. She is originally from Ciudad Vieja, and since she was a child she had to work. After knowing what the girls' lives were like, the US State Department, together with Asociación Nuestros Ahijados, began to support this family, the end of which was that both the women and the girls would no longer continue to collect garbage and they had the opportunity to study. They had the opportunity to receive psychological, medical, dental, clothing and shoes support as well as the other members of the family, the mother attended the Mothers Club and received training in jewelry and pastry, besides that they received financial help with the in order to defray the expenses that they had in the home. Currently the young lady continues to receive support with clinics, clothes and food, besides this she is receiving legal support because her husband died in an accident three months ago, the man came from work at dawn, the company driver lost control and they had an accident, unfortunately the lord lost his life and left a 4-month-old girl, the Association's lawyer is advising her so that she can receive what is fair by taking into account the irreparable loss of her husband. Despite the loss of her husband, the young lady is very grateful for the support she has been given, since the company where the husband works did not want to be responsible.