Las chamas deciden (chama is how we call girls)

In Venezuela there is no free abortion, guaranteed access to birth control pills or public politics that promote comprehensive sexual education. According to a study carried out in 2023 by seven NGOs, only 3 out of 10 girls and adolescents from vulnerable communities receive guidance on sexuality in schools or public health centers, despite the fact that comprehensive sexual education has been part of the educational program since February 2021.

For example, only 37% of adolescents have information about sexually transmitted infections from what they have seen on social networks or advice from family members; Furthermore, only 10% of adolescents or young women in vulnerable communities have access to family planning services.

Venezuela is the most unequal country in the region, with a gender gap that exceeds 60%, in which a femicide occurs every 19 hours, in which abortion continues to be penalized compared to the progress of other countries and which registers the second lower female labor force participation rate in the region. All as a consequence of a complex humanitarian emergency that has differentially impacted girls, adolescents and women.

The lack of access to information in the country has also placed it as the country with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in South America with 81 births per 1,000 young people between 15 and 19 years old, according to UNFPA data.

It is extremely difficult to understand the magnitude of the impact of the lack of comprehensive sexual education for girls and adolescents in Venezuela. Those of us who work for children and adolescents not only face criminalization by the State and religious, fundamentalist and anti-rights movements and groups, we must also plan our work based on under-reporting by civil society.

Many Venezuelan activists and specialists warn about the importance of comprehensive sexual education to reduce rates of gender-based violence, wage and educational gaps, and poverty levels in which girls, adolescents, and women live. The data obtained by independent researchers demonstrate that the Venezuelan patriarchal culture impedes the development of girls and adolescents and relegates them mainly to the role of mothers and caregivers.

Guaranteeing access to comprehensive sexuality education could save nearly two million girls and adolescents, especially those who live in vulnerable communities; because it questions gender roles and power relations and normalizes identities and orientations beyond binarism.

Finally, to understand what this means in everyday life, we share the testimony of Yusleiny Aristiguieta, community leader and ally of Las chamas decide:

“There is not enough information in the public system and that has an impact on homes, because mothers and fathers do not have the tools to talk safely with adolescents, and it is very important that they learn about contraceptive methods, sexually transmitted infections and planning, since they are the biggest deficiencies”

I was a girl without access to safe information and accompaniment and now I put my heart into this project so that the reality is different for so many others. I want a better world.

Las chamas deciden is a comprehensive sexual education program for girls and adolescents from vulnerable and low-income communities in Venezuela, created on the basis of the United Nations curriculum that has been promoted by UNFPA in the country.

Our project creates safe spaces so that girls and adolescents can reinforce their knowledge about sexual and reproductive health, enhance their leadership, communication and autonomy skills, and feel accompanied.

The experience was designed from a feminist and intersectional perspective and consists of three stages:

1. Share information on sexual and reproductive rights and health, which addresses topics such as gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, protection methods, sexually transmitted infections, dating without violence, consent, menstrual health, pregnancy and motherhood, bodily autonomy , sex and demand for rights and services.

2. Encourage girls and adolescents to find their voices and their own ways of telling their stories. In this stage, leadership, communication, spokesperson and leading participation tools are offered.

3. Develop informative or educational products on sexual and reproductive rights and health. The skills of each chama are used to create a product that allows each one to raise their voice regarding the topic they are most interested in spreading.

The last two stages of the program are made to be personalized: the tools will be adapted to each participant, their resources, their desires and their needs. Above all, the goal is that each girl can create her product taking her life project as a starting point.

In Venezuela, poverty reached 50.5% during 2022, according to a study by several universities in the country. The vulnerable communities, which we approach with Las chamas decide, are the most affected by the decade-long economic crisis; In addition, they face failures in basic services such as water, electricity or gas, they work for wages that are insufficient to cover the food basket, they live in violent or hostile environments and have no guarantee of fundamental rights such as health and education.

Girls and adolescents from vulnerable communities have little or no access to comprehensive sexual education or family planning services, and their life projects are often limited to the mandate of motherhood and care work.

Our program creates spaces for learning but above all for accompaniment so that the girls know that they have options and that they are not alone: there is a movement that supports them.

We have seen that workshops are useful to remove stigmas or normalize sexuality.

For example, Bárbara González, a 17-year-old teenager who is part of our network, tells about her experience in her first workshop in 2022 and how it impacted her life: “I really appreciated that it felt like a safe and respectful space, where I learned. that talking about sexuality does not have to be obscene or bad. I really liked the menstrual health part, to this day I still remember a lot of what was taught and I even use the menstrual cup that they gave us, before the workshop I was very scared, but now I feel too comfortable.”

For many of these young women, like Bárbara, our space is the first approach to comprehensive sexual education.

In these communities, only 3 out of every 10 girls, adolescents and women have access to information and, in the face of the State's inattention, Las chamas decide has directly impacted 100 adolescents and indirectly on nearly 300 people in their surroundings, up to the moment.

Our program guarantees them a safe space to talk about their bodies and their autonomy, their life projects and desires, their needs and abilities.

Our girls from vulnerable communities are the most affected by the complex humanitarian emergency, patriarchal culture and economic crisis. In Venezuela, poverty has a woman's face and behind these figures are girls and adolescents who do not receive sex education, do not have access to contraceptives and are also criminalized and violated when they are pregnant. They will not have to support another life but they are not allowed to have an abortion either. Their destiny is to be mothers of absent fathers ignored by society, the family and the State.

Our project team is made up of people sensitized to the gender and human rights perspective. Each person, based on their skills in activism and community leadership, has the ability to approach communities, diagnose problems and work together with the population involved. This allows for forceful actions, a reciprocity that strengthens the work and, above all, establishes bases and tools that make the executed solution sustainable.

It is important to highlight that we are young people working with young people, that we also come from contexts in vulnerable conditions and that we take into account our experiences and those of the community, achieving a common and referential point that supports the perspective of our work and makes us close. to the context we face. Which allows us to have greater empathy and understanding in the place where we are executing the solution.

The team leader, María Vallejo is a female journalist, feminist activist and workshop facilitator in Comprehensive Sexual Education. Her work has led her to have a direct relationship with the communities, which allows not only to have knowledge of the realities of the locality but also to identify problems and understand their structure, dynamics and evaluate how to address them together with the affected people, who are involved from the moment logistics begins to carry out the stages of solution development.

The community representative who lives and works to transform the reality of his locality is the one who has experience in the specific field; She knows this and will open the doors of the place to you in a respectful manner. Offering its availability and the information required to carry out the project.

The design and/or methodology of our project is responsible for involving the population. The beginning of the workshop is guided by key dynamics that, in addition to breaking the ice, aim to create a safe space between all the people involved in the place. Giving voice and importance to their contributions and allowing their comments to be part of and give rise to the development of the workshop. For us it is essential to have the perspectives and observations indicated by the participants who are inhabitants of the community. In this way we guarantee that our solution responds accurately and adjusted to current needs.

Last but not least, this project is engraved in our hearts. We put everything we are, know and feel for a cause that we are passionate about and that we are confident will contribute to gender equality for our girls. 

More than 100 girls and adolescents, directly and about 300 people from their environments 

In Venezuela there is no guarantee of the basic conditions to sustain life, that is why we created a program that is innovative in its response capacity in this context of complex humanitarian emergency. Each space we design for girls and adolescents is special and unique because it adapts to each community according to its needs and resources.

For example, in some sectors we have taken advantage of the access that some girls have to cell phones and the internet by creating products such as videos for Instagram or TikTok; In others, however, the precariousness is greater and the adolescents found their ways of communicating in posters that they made by hand and hung in the streets of the community.

Whatever the space or conditions, girls and adolescents will have the same communication and leadership tools and, in addition, they will have the ability to adapt their skills to their environments and enhance them with what is available. Las chamas deciden is innovative because it recognizes inequalities and allows the protagonists of the spaces to raise their voices despite this, to demand rights and to think creatively about how to improve their living conditions.

In addition, we are creating the first network of volunteer girls and adolescents for sexual and reproductive rights in vulnerable communities. Our innovation is the capacity for adaptability that allows us to have a program that was designed with a feminist, diverse and human rights perspective.

1. Reduce the information gap on sexual and reproductive rights
   

1.2. Research and design a training workshop on sexual and reproductive rights.

1.3. Select a group of girls and adolescents as workshop participants.

1.4. Give a workshop on sexual and reproductive rights.

2. Train girls and adolescents in the creation of informative content.

2.1. Give workshops on sexual and reproductive rights and offer tools for content creation.

2.2. Evaluate the equipment and capabilities available for content creation.

2.3. Create test content after the workshop to guide, monitor and improve the learning obtained.

3. Achieve the leadership of girls and adolescents

3.1 Listen to girls and adolescents to find out what topics interest them most.

3.2 Offer communication and participation tools in spaces of power.

3.3 Open a space for girls and adolescents to speak and tell their stories

(More that all: contribute to gender equality for our girls)

Offering workshops on Sexual and Reproductive Rights and creating informative content would allow girls and adolescents to receive training on the subject and have promotional tools to replicate what they have learned. This should lead them to have greater access to timely, truthful and verified information; compare what they knew with the new knowledge they are acquiring and be able to share the learning with other people who need it, which in the end will reduce the existing information gap in the community, contributing to gender equality.

2 people in the development and growth of the idea, on a full-time basis. 

4 people in support and design of the experience, part time

Las chamas deciden is 2 years and 6 months old. We devised the program during the first quarter of 2021 and by May of that year we created the first space in a community in western Caracas. Since then, we have reached 8 more communities and nearly 100 girls and adolescents.

As defenders of equality, we maintain respect for people's dignity as a value in our project, which translates as not discriminating for any reason with any differential or unequal treatment. One way to guarantee diversity, equity and inclusion internally is to have spaces for conversation in our team about how we feel, what personal aspirations we have from our role and how we want to contribute and impact from the individual to the external and collective. It is an exercise that allows us to evaluate the differences that exist between each one and evaluate how to live together in a healthy, respectful, empathetic and committed way to work on common objectives in a successful and timely manner for all.

For us as a team, it is important that whoever gets involved, both to be part of the program and to collaborate, can position themselves against patriarchy and show a fighting spirit against violations of human rights. This way we guarantee that our space is a safe place for those who are part of it.

Our program has girls a and adolescents at its center and with that core we build our business model. The main activity is the learning space that we co-create in vulnerable communities.

As the project progressed, involved more communities, we realized that our activities require stationery for the participants, a community space, our cell phones with Internet access, safe transportation and, above all, it is essential to have all the team in place to be able to offer a personalized and monitoring experience.

These activities would not be possible without our main partners: community leaders. Also, we have alliances with feminist activists and non-governmental organizations.

We want to insist that our program responds to a structure formed from what is known as a market niche, because it adapts to the needs of each community and, within it, adjusts to the interests and desires of each chama. From there, from that unique experience, our value proposition arises, which is the personalization of the space and content, the adaptation of activities to the environment, the unique execution and design, and the capabilities of the team.

We reach our clients, although we prefer to call them protagonists, directly, thanks to contact with community leaders. Something important is that, when we designed the business model of Las chamas decide, we thought that the relationship with clients would be established as personalized assistance, but we realized that, based on what emerged from the workshops, we want to move more towards a model of community or co-creation of services, since we believe that girls and adolescents are the ones who can best create solutions for other girls and adolescents.

Comprehensive sexual education is transversal to the lives of girls and adolescents and has a direct impact on their development because it gives them the opportunity to design their life projects beyond the mandate of motherhood, which means that they can be part of the health system. higher education and the work field they choose. This would be essential for reducing the wage gap and gender-based violence.

It is important to highlight that UNESCO has insisted that comprehensive sexual education has contributed to reducing sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. In addition, the World Health Organization has declared that it reduces maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity and reduces the cases in which unsafe abortions are resorted to.

In addition to comprehensive sexual education, Las chamas decide offers adolescents menstrual health kits, for many, their first. The delivery of menstrual cups has a direct impact on the economy of families. With an investment of 15 dollars per glass, our participants can save an average of 5 dollars per month that they would allocate to menstrual management products, which represents 92% of the minimum wage in Venezuela.

Finally, what is most important for us is that we are sure that comprehensive sexual education can contribute to the eradication of gender-based violence because it questions gender roles and relations.

Until now, Las chamas decide has operated thanks to financing.  

Las chamas decide is a non-profit program whose incentive is the value of the service we offer to girls and adolescents.

Our project is sustainable thanks to the community itself because, once they allow us to reach them, we share with them all the necessary tools for them to be promoters of comprehensive sexual education: communication and research skills and for the creation of informative and educational products. Furthermore, our girls and adolescents, formed into a network, are our allies and connections with the communities: they are the first promoters and multipliers of the learning space.

Thanks to the leading participation of the chamas, the content we offer transcends and does not depend solely on our team, but we monitor that they have the conditions to sustain the learning space.

However, for Las Chamas Decide to reach more communities, we must be open to a sustainability plan that is mixed, so donations and financing are essential.

Reaching more populations has a cost of transportation and logistics that we need to cover and, after establishing a relationship of trust with the community, they can continue with our advice.