Help Empower Women at Opportunity Home

As we have explained in other projects in recent months, our home of opportunities has also become a place of refuge for people fleeing war. For more than six months we have been welcoming hundreds of people arriving in Spain, mainly women and children.

In our home we have worked with women to provide them with housing, food and documentation. We have also focused on helping them to learn the language and to find work: two big challenges, which we have been able to overcome.

Today we are happy to announce that many women have found employment and although the situation is still very difficult, they have their own income and a safe and welcoming place to live. Among the jobs secured, we have made an agreement with a company that manages the cleaning of the streets of the city of Madrid, which has greatly facilitated the process so that they can obtain formal employment contracts.

Thank you to all who make this possible! 

Dear friends,

These last months have been very busy in our Opportunity Home for women. Besides our daily activities, to keep on helping women at risk of socio-residential exclusion, we have embraced new challenges.

In partnership with other NGOs and entities, Mensajeros de la Paz has been working to alleviate the consequences of the Ukranian war. Since the beginning of the war, our actions have been focused on providing emergency support to people inside Ukraine, at the borders and those arriving in Spain or moving to other countries. In Spain, among many other initiatives, we have welcomed more than 10 women fleeing the war in Ukraine into our Opportunity Home.

Leaving behind their lives and their environment is very sad and hard. These women are only driven to save their children and many of them leave behind not only husbands, but fathers, brothers and, on many occasions, sisters and mothers who also want to fight for their country.

Our house has adapted and strengthened itself to shelter these women, helping them not only by housing. They receive Spanish lessons once a week from one of our volunteers and twice from other organizations, such as the Red Cross. We are also helping them to integrate into the labor market in jobs that can provide them with their own income. They have also joined in leisure activities, attending to a special session of the musical “Tina” to raise funds in benefit of Ukraine.

Thanks to all those who offer us support so that we can continue working to help women at risk, including those affected by the war.