Donor: Harvard University & Multiple Individuals
Local Ally: PODEROSAS Colombia
Beneficiaries: 500 teenagers
Location: Bogotá
Universally, gender equality, teenage pregnancies, and violence against women are some of the leading causes of multidimensional poverty, which create a domino effect that traps not just women, but their children, the following generations, and ultimately, entire communities. Colombia is no exception to this effect, as the statistics speak for themselves: 75% of teenage mothers are living in poverty, and they will have a 44.7% less chance of obtaining higher education than adult mothers, and will be 38.2% more likely to be affected by unemployment.
But all these issues stem from one simple fact: lack of information. PODEROSAS Colombia realized that no law will be effective in tackling the gaps of poverty if there if no health and reproductive education for the youth. As such, they created an innovative social approach that teaches children and teenagers about their sexual and reproductive health, their basic reproductive rights, and how to identify issues such as gender violence that may arise in their communities.
G2C is glad to have been able to support PODEROSAS Colombia in 2022 through this project that sought to provide operational support so they may continue disrupting cycles of poverty by providing sexual and reproductive education and enhancing the power of decision of teenagers across Colombia’s most vulnerable communities. In addition, with the help of Harvard’s grant, PODEROSAS Colombia also developed the framework to better structure their organization, through the creation of PODEROSAS methodologies flowchart, risk map, risk mitigations strategies, and policy elaboration for these, as well as the creation of better measuring guidelines and tools for their impact.