Empowerment workshops for 30 young girls - Bolivia

The first step of the project “ Diseñando Sueños” ended on a positive note and with a lot of hope in the construction of a better future for the young Bolivian girls from Cochabamba. They have been trained through different workshops in fashion, design, and jewellery. Local expert contributors led these workshops. The sale of the products in France was a real success. Other workshops have also been implemented to improve the young women's skills, such as self-esteem through dance therapy, but also entrepreneurship. We noticed huge improvements in the young women's attitudes towards themselves and the development of their skills.  

The majority of the beneficiaries are now out of their foster homes, which is why our role is now to follow and support them as well as making sure that their personal and professional projects are on the right track. At the same time, we need to continue implementing the first step project’s workshops, and to diversify the fields of workshops. Our objective is that the newcomers can also participate in the projects and be empowered, as their predecessors have been, with more possibilities of specialisation. Once this has been achieved, we will organise the implementation of marmalade fabrication, recycling and ecological agriculture workshops, as well as reinforcing the entrepreneurship and self-esteem workshops.

For the second part of our project, we have established two main goals. The first one is to offer a variety of workshops to the girls focusing on recycling, products making and economical independency in order to generate incomes for both the centres and the girls that are already self-sustaining. The second goal is to implement a follow-up system that will enable the young women to find a job, create their own businesses and a network that will prevent them from falling back in a vicious cycle of violence and mistreatment.

In this rising project, we are searching for a place where they could live and sell their creations. It would be a space where they would be safe to talk, where they would be listened to, as well as being their work and training space.

Our partners are institutions and organizations as well as European and national volunteers who represent a strong network of competencies, knowledge and connections. These actors are specialised in women's rights and green economy, which enables us to be a step ahead of the current economy and to be part of the global understanding of current worldwide challenges. This also helps us achieve our last goal, which is to act in response to the Bolivian market and to make the girls’ professional and personal integration as easy as possible.