Healthy and Empowered Women and Girls Program
Through this program, FUNDAECO has integrated sexual and reproductive health problems into its conservation approach for the management of protected areas and sustainable community development. The design, establishment and operation of local health clinics has become a vehicle to promote the empowerment of women and girls, as well as to promote their participation in decision-making spaces regarding the management and protection of natural resources.
During the last 13 years, FUNDAECO has established 34 Women's Clinics to provide Sexual and Reproductive Health services serving more than 16,000 people annually. And providing Sexual and Reproductive Health services to the most remote places of the protected areas of Izabal, Petén, Huehuetenango and Quiché.
FUNDAECO promotes the cultural inclusion of the services provided in the clinics. For this, the midwives of the community register and receive constant training from the Ministry of Health and guarantee that services are provided in the local Mayan languages (including Mam, Chuj, Q´anjobal´ and Q´eqchi).
In 2015, in order to strengthen the impact of the program, FUNDAECO created a support programm to promote primary, secondary and higher education among young women, who are the most vulnerable to dropping out of school due to early pregnancy. To date, the scholarship program has graduated more than 200 adolescents and girls from primary and secondary school. In 2019 alone, 48 young people received a scholarship in the Caribbean region of Guatemala, most of them motivated by their participation in educational talks about Human Rights and Empowerment of Women.
Also, FUNDAECO has created an alliance with the Ministry of Education (Mineduc) to develop comprehensive education and SRH processes in more than 60 schools in Huehuetenango and Izabal.
FUNDAECO's innovative model breaks traditional barriers between disciplines, ensuring the provision of services to indigenous women in isolated communities within protected areas. It also combines modern health care with traditional indigenous knowledge, trains and supports traditional midwives, and links them to public health services.
The sustainability of the Women's Clinics is ensured through self-management and user fees, focused on creating demand with a culturally relevant perspective among rural youth; and linking maternal and neonatal health with sustainable rural development, and the conservation of biodiversity.
We believe this model can bring a focalized solution to the many structural problems affecting women, thus creating in well organized and empowered communities.
Strategic Objectives
-To improve health conditions -with emphasis on Sexual and Reproductive Health- in rural populations within and around protected areas.
-To expand comprehensive scholarship and youth leadership training opportunities for girls and boys, young women and men residing in and around protected areas.
-To strengthen knowledge about the productivity and empowerment of women to consolidate community organization, local development processes and resilience to climate change.
Community Health Clinics (ENG)
Promoting gender justice (ENG)
Ganadoras de Premio Soluciones de Género y Clima 2021
Ganadoras de Premio Soluciones de Género y Clima 2019
Puedes apoyar este programa ¡aquí!