AYUDA Y SOLIDARIDAD CON LAS NIÑAS (Help and solidarity with Girls)

Ayuda y Solidaridad con las niñas administers several shelters and job training programs for street and at-risk girls. It does not do work on the street, but receives girls referred by outreach teams from Casa Alianza or from the city.

For the first several months, girls live in a shelter in Mexico City, but once they are mature enough, they move to one of several country houses outside the city. There, they learn job skills and work for a salary: 60% of the money is kept in a savings account for when they graduate and the rest covers their daily expenses. In this way, Ayuda y Solidaridad knows that when a girl leaves the program, she will have enough money for an apartment.

Though the program works hard to make girls independent, it also hopes to reunite them with their families. If a girl wishes, social workers find her family and diagnose it. Girls may then receive visits from their families, and if that goes well, spend the weekend with them. During this process, social workers decide whether the girl can return -- in many cases, they prohibit it, because of violence, alcoholism, or potential abuse. However, if the family and the girl desire, and all have sufficient economic and emotional resources, the girl may return to live with her family.

Ayuda y Solidaridad works hard to undermine “street mentality.” The program has a contract with a drug treatment facility, thus helping girls who return to the street to get drugs. Many girls remember the street with nostalgia, to which counselors respond, “Look, if you have a better place to live than this house, I’ll take you there!”

Each counselor works with five girls. One psychologist provides specialized care. All staff are women, a fact that has caused problems, because the girls never manage to create an honest image of men -- they only see them as abusers or as romantic fantasies. They hope to provide the girls with other models of masculinity, such as male counselors.

The programs receives money from a “patronato,” a committee of committed women who dedicate themselves to finding support for the institution. To this point, this method has been quite successful for Ayuda y Solidaridad, which has not suffered the financial crisis faced by many NGOs.

Ayuda y Solidaridad con las Niñas, IAP
Paganinni #127 Colonia Vallejo
Delegación Gustavo A Madero
CP 07870, México, DF
México

tel: 5759 2950

www.ayuda.org.mx

Contact: Mariamar Estrada, ayuda@ayuda.org.mx