Soy Nina is a nonprofit organization that currently works with 170 girls ages 6-15 in Desamparados, south of San Jose, Costa Ricas capital. We have been working through a weekly after-school club for the past almost six years and we have seen first hand the positive impact that our program has on girls empowerment and confidence. In honor of this years International Day of the Girl, to end this 2023, we would like to raise a total of $25,000, including $10,000 through this crowdfunding page.
According to recent data from UNICEF, globally: Nearly 4 in 10 girls are not completing upper-secondary school today. Girls aged 5-14 spend 160 million more hours every day on unpaid care and domestic work than boys of the same age. 4 in 10 adolescent girls aged 15-19 who want to avoid pregnancy are not using a modern method. Nearly 1 in 4 married/partnered adolescent girls aged 15-19 have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner at least once in their life.
To date, after almost six years of existence, we have worked in three under-resourced urban communities in the county of Desamparados. Our long-term goal is to be able to replicate our program in other communities in Costa Rica, especially in rural areas where the gender-based violence experienced by girls is higher. Our main strategies to prevent gender-based violence includes life-skills development and the promotion of gender equality. We do this through a weekly girls club.
We focus on identity transformations for school-age girls, promote the breaking of gender norms and roles that result in empowerment, autonomy and equality. This translate into girls avoiding risk situations for themselves and their communities such as: sexual, emotional, physical and patrimonial violence; violence within affective relationships; pregnancy at early ages; avoiding inappropriate relationships (illegal in Costa Rica since 2017) and child marriage (early unions in Latin America).
