PREVENTION PROGRAM
Looking to be good stewards of the resources God provides Amparo, after much prayer and research, in early 2021 we decided to invest up to 75% fo Amparo’s human, financial and general resources towards Prevention Programs. The returns on investments in prevention programs are overwhelmingly higher than the ones from restoration or intervention programs. And we are not only speaking about financial returns. It applies to human resources, time, effort, fruit in the life of people we serve, etc.
2022 was a very stable year for our Community Outreach Program. We invested more than 240 hours in family visits and over 200 hours in tutoring. We held eight monthly workshops and three big Outreach Events. But we didn’t want to settle in this! We have the desire to grow and serve more girls, in a deeper and better way. So we started 2023 with a challenge. To double the amount of girls we reach. WHAT?! Yes, we decided to continue serving the 26 girls we ended serving last year and aim to reach 50 girls this year.
So we started praying and planning how to do it. First we decided to perform an old school census in the neighborhood. Our team went door by door, going into every house we were welcomed.
To have firsthand good, honest and reliable data (which is a miracle to get in Bolivia jajaja). We surveyed over 100 families in an area of 10 blocks. The result was immediate. We signed up 26 new girls and confirmed 21 girls to continue in our program. So far we signed up 47 girls! But would they show up to our activities? 78% of them showed up for the first session of tutoring on February 22nd and 93% for the second session on March 1rst.
Each one of these girls already received 50us dollars in books, school supplies and bag packs. They will receive throughout the year sound biblical teaching, a bi-weekly home visit, a weekly 3 hour session of tutoring in key areas of development, biblical counselling, a monthly workshop aimed to develop specific skills for themselves and another one for their moms, free legal advice, among other benefits.
Two key reasons to be able to increase our capacity in such a way were:
- We have two new staff members on the program. Both are familiar faces! Rosio, the psychologist from the Girls Home now is working part time in the Prevention Program. She will be providing one on one biblical counseling to at least 6 girls plus their moms at the time. This will be a huge boost to the discipleship we provide to our precious girls, especially the ones at higher risk. The second addition is Maria. She has been a volunteer for over a year and she will be helping Matilde (Program Coordinator) part time with the logistics and daily operations.
- For the first time ever we have our own space. Since November we are renting ‘Club Amparo’. A five room, two bathrooms space within the community. This makes possible to have the tutoring in three separate and comfortable environments. Also improving significantly the quality of education we provide the girls. Also giving the staff and volunteers better conditions and resources to serve.
We are committed to be good stewards of everything God has provided to Amparo. We prayerfully develop strategies to make this happen and are giving the everyday operative steps towards it.
Your support is key in all of these. Please continue praying for us. And if it wouldn’t be for your generosity we couldn’t rent a space, we couldn’t buy books, pay for staff’s wages and many other things. Thank you for being part of this and believing what God is doing through Amparo.
Soon I’ll be sharing with you more news about the start of the year in Amparo.