Gender equality in Guayaquil
In 2018, YOUCA, together with Plan International and Juconi, supported a local project in Nueva Prosperina, Guayaquil, Ecuador. Hundreds of young people thus learned about relationships, sex, violence and birth prevention. Manon was YOUCA ambassador at the time and tells you how the project has gone since then.
Three summers ago, we ambassadors left for Ecuador on an immersion trip. With a heavy backpack on our shoulders, a lot of jitters in our stomachs, but above all a lot of desire to meet the Ecuadorian youngsters. Meanwhile, it is three years later and the project has been completed. Therefore, we would like to take you through the course of our journey.
The project
We travelled to Guayaquil in the summer of 2018 to discover first-hand the project supported by Plan International. There, we saw how important Plan's project was for young people. Sexual reproduction rights and women's rights in general were a big taboo that Plan and the young people wanted to break. They engage with the parents of young people, conduct workshops for boys and girls on those topics, train young people to become young leaders, connect young people with health centres that have access to sexual and reproductive health care, ... These facilities are very important in a country where there are high rates of teenage pregnancy and young people have little opportunity for association.
Thanks to these activities, young people throughout the district are exposed to these delicate issues and receive sexual education and access to sexual health care. This allows them to work together towards a culture where gender-based violence no longer has a place and there is open communication about sexual and reproductive rights. In addition to working together to build this culture, the young people also engage in conversations to gain more voice. They liaise with local governments and submit legislative proposals.
12 Ecuadorian youngsters came to Belgium to tell their stories here in schools participating in the YOUCA Action Day. After the exchange, we continued to follow the project closely. Everything went smoothly until our world was rocked by the covid crisis here in Belgium too. To continue all their important work in times of a pandemic, Plan bought mobile devices and internet access for vulnerable young people. This way, the young people could not only continue to attend the workshops but also had internet for school. Thus, their activities could still partly continue through, for example, a video forum on adolescent pregnancy prevention or video dialogues with national child and youth rights organisations. In addition, food parcels and hygiene kits were distributed to vulnerable families in the district. Those hygiene kits included, for example, menstrual cups, which broke several myths around menstruation. The young people also set up a small business. Together, they sewed mouth masks and prepared meals that they sold in their own neighbourhoods.
After this three-year project, many vulnerable young people in Guayaquil have been introduced to sexual and reproductive rights, gender equality and, in addition, strengthened themselves into young leaders working together for a society free of gender-based violence.
We ambassadors are therefore incredibly proud to have been part of this.
¡ Saludos !
Carla, Pauline, Mathijs, Marie and Manon
