Central America has been one of the hardest hit regions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The social and economic circumstances of the public health crisis have amplified the uncertainty for women in Panama where almost 300,000 employment contracts were suspended, of which 43% were for women, and the majority included women of color and minority groups (Mitradel, 2021).This adds to the general context of the LATAM region where it is estimated that close to 12 million women have lost their jobs (OIT, 2021).
During the pandemic crisis we documented that 90% (300 active alumni women) of our self-improvement program (CAPTA) had suffered an increase in their internal and external situations of social vulnerability. These were causally linked to substantial job losses, halting of in-person education for their children and an increase in mental and physical violence; due to long lockdown periods compounded by unhealthy living conditions. Added that, the women we train are part of the informal economy, suffer mental and physical violence, have almost no formal education and sustain their homes as heads of family with an average of 2 to 5 children. Even though these women currently face great challenges such as the impossibility of reconciling employment and work at home and insufficient support for care activities, they are seeking ways to overcome these challenges and formalize their projects.
In order to address these underlying disparities compounded by the pandemic we seek to increment the access to non-formal education for vulnerable women of Panama. Through the initial virtual adaptation of the program we have been able to train over 142 women in 10 months, from which 80% have elevated or sustained their self-steem levels as 97% have been positively assessed in advancing the development of their entrepreneurial capabilities. In order to rebuild education and employment pathways for our beneficiaries, we aim to continue to strengthen our psycho-emotional and vocational program through a virtual training platform focused on integrating entrepreneurship and digital training. Our goal is to build a robust learning virtual platform centered on the beneficiaries to grant access to 300 at-risk women in the same amount of months.
The challenge Fundacion Calicanto currently faces is being able to meet the demand of the program which has increased by 30% since the end of 2020 as more women are drawn to the program and seeking to improve their abilities, economic resilience and, financial stability towards asset building.
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Despite the unprecedented journey of 2020, we virtually trained 84 new women which meant we impacted over 300 family members through CAPTA, which included raising awareness on issues of domestic violence, and training the women in psychological, emotional and entrepreneurial skills. But while we were educating new students, most of our former graduates were losing their jobs due to the crisis.
Through it all, they found basic and immediate relief assistance in us. This situation highlighted the long-term impact of our training program and the large percentage of women that felt comfortable reaching back to our team for support. We saw our alumni network revive last year.
They seeked relief but mostly, they wanted to understand how to support their own families and communities.
We realized that our graduates were empowered to make bottom-up social changes in their communities. And, we were ready to help.
At the end of 2021 we launched our first micro project in collaboration with our alumni network: Agents of Change for Gender Violence Prevention.
This project selected 10 former graduates of the CAPTA Program to be trained as representatives of the organization. We trained them on topics of gender and violence prevention so that they could replicate this knowledge, exercising their role as leaders, and empowering them to promote bottom-up social changes in their communities.
By generating more spaces for connection between the alumni and their communities, we are promoting more space for personal growth and empowerment for these women.
Since 2005 we have helped over 1600 to educate themselves to transition out of poverty. Today, there are 350 active graduates seeking ways to give back to their communities because the program empowered them to do so. This year, our goal is to educate and train 150 new women, while continuing to support and strengthen our alumni network through specific programs and activities.
To the question: what’s next for the women after CAPTA?
We say: CAPTA is the first destination through which their personal empowerment journey begins.
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Resilience: Calicanto’s Secret Sauce
#genderequality #sustainablelivelihoods
Like to so many other organizations globally, 2020 represents a year of great challenges but also incredible opportunities for Calicanto. As a result of the COVID19 crisis, Panama established strict sanitary restrictions reducing social and physical mobility by 80%. Since this measure limited the continuation of the face-to-face execution methodology of the CAPTA Program (Training for Work), the foundation rapidly began working on alternatives to continue the implementation of the program. Meanwhile, the team worked directly on assisting 332 former graduates on issues that would help them cope with and counteract the effects of the health crisis.
By the end of August, the foundation had managed to pilot the new version of the CAPTA Program under the virtual modality. This adaptation has allowed the continuity of the program and the inclusion of more beneficiaries, approximately a 45% increase. Through CAPTA Relief and the support of the French Embassy we were also able to reconnect with the program's graduates to implement a new program called CAPTA Ambassadors, part of our follow-up program Conexiones.
According to the United Nations Development Program, Latin America will experience the most severe economic recession in decades due to COVID19. Most countries in the region are at risk of losing two decades of progress in the fight against poverty and inequality. The foundation seizes this unique opportunity of adapting the CAPTA Program through which it can continue to fight poverty and reduce the social gaps towards access and economic opportunity.
Our Program’s Evolution
Our 2020 Impact
So far this year we have directly benefited 506 women through our programs through the support of international and local partners.Through the implementation this year of three CAPTAs, we will have 86 new CAPTA graduates. They will continue their personal and professional journey to be ambassadors of the program and agents of change in their communities.
What we know
The public health crisis and social isolation have amplified the uncertainty, placing many women's livelihoods at risk. With the appearance of COVID19, we have observed the emergence of three variant at-risk population that:
What we have done
Our plans for 2021
Thanks to our partners and donors we have started to fundraise towards next year. For this #GivingTuesday we are seeking to continue to raise funds to be able to implement our 2021's strategy to continue to fight poverty and educate women in Panama through:
We have been working non stop since Covid-19 striked us in march. As many other non profits, our first response was to help as many of our beneficiaries as possible. We educated, gave emotional and monetary support to the ones in most need, but our goal was to keep doing what we do best: Change lives through our educational program.
That was something we had been planning before Covid-19, how to reach as many women as possible and how to do it in an easy and accessible way?
Thanks to these uncertain times, we focused like never before and finally we have created a program that is 100% virtual and structured to give tools to all those women who have an entrepreneurial mindset to give them the tools they need to reach their goals and economic stability.
It hasn't been easy, the digital gap in our country is very real and we had to think out of the box to overcome that obstacle.
We are starting a new challenge and we wanted to share this great news with you, this wouldn't be possible without your support.
Also we have been receiving support from companies and small businesses who want to give back to the community.
In the last few weeks we delivered more Gift Cards for grocery shopping, our beneficiaries had a sweet treat in the form of delicious cookies and face masks from Wellys Kitchen and also received brand new sneakers from Adidas and Reebook.
We won't stop:
-We kept our vow to give tools to women to become financially independent and we started a program with 6 beneficiaries to make face masks for sale in collaboration with Fundamorgan.
-We had been working in alliance with almost 30 non profit organizations in a shared effort to collect funds in a campaign denominated #RecuperaPanama (Recover Panama)
-We are giving 2 weekly sessions of Espacio Positivo, trough Zoom and IG live
All of these efforts wouldn't be possible without your support, we want to thank you for believing in our cause and being part of the change in the lives of panamanian women.
The last time we submitted a report we spoke about our primary response to the Covid-19, our plan was still in the making because we were, as many, figuring out where our support was needed.
A lot has changed since the beginning of the pandemic and now we are stronger and working harder than ever before.
We achieved a lot of goals in april:
And because not everything is work, we had a virtual baby shower, to celebrate a new baby in our family. We are excited and can't wait for those baby pictures!
We often hear that when you go through difficult times is when you see human nature at its finest, today we can confirm that. We are working closer than ever to achieve our goals, our board is involved in every action to support our work and our beneficiaries are showing us beautiful lessons about humility and always lending a helping hand to others.
The pandemic may have changed the world and we knew it, now we have the chance to make it more human, equal and peaceful.
Thanks to your support, we are very thankful to have the chance to keep working and do something that changes lives.
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