Full Circle

Working with Pre-Teen Girls

When Futuro Lleno de Esperanza opened in 2011, one of the "needs" that the community had identified was pre-natal care for young mothers. At that time, most of the young mothers were in their late teens, and due to the population explosion in the area, the public health services were lacking. Women were getting pre-natal care, but not pre-natal education.

We opened some basic pre-natal education classes: what happens to our bodies during pregnancy, how to take care of ourselves, nutrition during pregnancy, childbirth preparation and lactation advice. The women received a healthy and hearty snack during class sessions and their prenatal vitamins. The word spread and women were popping in and asking when the next session would start.

By all measures, the program was working.

But something wasn't right. The women - young and old, first pregnancy and fifth pregnancy - had so many questions and doubts about the anatomy of their bodies, that we started to dig deeper and find out what was going on. 

It turns out that young women were getting younger - we were (and are) seeing younger girls getting pregnant - and that they weren't (and aren't) receiving any kind of orientation in school or at home about their bodies.

Cue a huge brainstorming session on how we, as an education-focused organization, could help. Three years ago, we began working with our partner school to offer "reproductive health" workshops to middle school girls. 

In December, we celebrated a full circle moment.
A number of the students in the workshops this semester were girls who had graduated from Futuro Lleno de Esperanza in our very first pre-school graduation. 

It might seem insignificant - but for us, it fulfilled our expectations of working with our preschool kids through elementary school. We have watched these girls (and boys) grow and learn since they were five years old, and now we get to watch them, and help them, transition into a new period of their lives. 

The program has morphed and transformed over the three years, and is completely adaptable to the girls in each group. All of the workshops have components of female biology, information about how their period works, feminine hygiene. Most importantly, the workshops focus on each girl's self worth, her value as a human being, her power - and the power of women all over the world. We want these girls to know that they are special, that they are loved, and that they have a future full of hope. 

Haitian Youth Ministries

Our center is just one of many in the Futuro Lleno de Esperanza Foundation. The history is that "our" Futuro was conceived and built based on a need conveyed by the people of our community, and once it began to "run itself," the founders felt called to expand. While we work closely with the foundation, our ministry is a little different than the rest of the foundation since we work in a purely Dominican community and other other centers - more than 50 small churches and 20 learning centers - are situated in purely Haitian migrant communities.

This December, we all had the opportunity to put together a 3 day retreat for high school students involved in our Haitian community ministries. The team at Futuro helped to put together the schedule and leadership activities, and the pastors and leaders of the churches helped to run the show.

40 teenagers took part in the retreat from 5 of the church communities. We had a great time developing leadership skills, studying the Bible, playing games and fellowshipping together. The leaders of the retreat identified some teen leaders who, if they accept, will take part in more leadership training and be in charge of future retreats and youth activities - making it a locally, youth led ministry

Short term teams will have the opportunity to join in this leadership training this year! We are looking for ways to increase authentic, meaningful, mutual learning between our teens and the teens who come to share with us on short term trips.