La infancia es una etapa decisiva para el desarrollo de las personas. Es el momento en que se desarrollan las capacidades físicas, emocionales e intelectuales que definen nuestra personalidad. Es un tiempo para ser feliz, para jugar, para vivir en familia y comunidad, para ir a la escuela y entablar las primeras amistades, no para casarse y/o ser madre.
Miles de niñas en México ven interrumpida su niñez y adolescencia y, con ella, su pleno desarrollo, cuando se ven obligadas a contraer matrimonio producto de costumbres arraigadas en diversas comunidades mexicanas, así como por embarazos no planeados de niñas y adolescentes, muchas veces producto de violencia sexual, que lleva a las niñas y adolescentes a casarse o unirse a edades tempranas. El matrimonio infantil y las uniones tempranas están relacionados con las desigualdades de género, la pobreza, la deserción escolar, la violencia y el embarazo adolescente. El matrimonio infantil pone en peligro la vida y la salud de las niñas, además de limitar su futuro.
Desde 2017 en Yo Quiero Yo Puedo impulsamos acciones para prevenir el matrimonio infantil y las uniones tempranas a través de programas psicoeducativos orientados a ampliar las opciones de las niñas para que puedan elegir y tomar sus propias decisiones, promovemos la igualdad de género y generamos estrategias personales y comunitarias acabar con esta práctica.
Tu apoyo nos permite seguir trabajando en las comunidades que más lo necesitan, cada donación se traduce en una nueva oportunidad para que niñas, adolescentes y mujeres tengan un futuro mejor.
Child marriage is a global problem that has devastating consequences for thousands of girls and adolescents. Understanding the causes and consequences of this practice makes us continue working so soon no woman will be forced to marry without her consent.
In Yo quiero Yo Puedo, and thanks to the collaboration of great allies, we have managed to enter the heart of the Montaña in the State of Guerrero, Mexico, to implement our program “Help them not to reach the altar” with the communities of the municipality of Metlatonoc, where this practice is still part of their uses and customs, as it is common that girls and adolescents are married to much older men to reduce the economic burden for their families and to obtain some income from the sale of the minor.
From our work, communities have understood that this practice violate human rights, and are aware now of the violence dynamics against girls and women which voices have been nullified for decades in the region. Thanks to the support we have had, our team of local facilitators has entered the communities to generate sustainable individual and social change, gaining the trust of the residents, being sensitive to the conditions of the region and deeply respecting the beliefs, which has resulted in the signing of 11 minutes of agreement, where local authorities and community representatives have decided to criminalize and put an end to this practice.
We still have a lot to do and thanks to your contributions we can continue working to build a different reality for thousands of girls and women in the region, through education and awareness raising to guarantee the recognition and protection of their rights.
Join us to end violence against girls and women!
We are celebrating! On September 13th, 2022, the "La Boda de Juanita" campaign was recognized with the gold award at the 10° Encuentro C-level of IAB Mexico. Thanks to the pro bono support of Media Monks we have managed to share our message with more people, becoming a national reference on the issue of the prevention of forced marriages and child unions in Mexico. Up to now “La Boda de Juanita” videoclip have had more than 37,161 reproductions on social networks, we invite you to see it!
“Yo Quiero Yo Puedo” keeps working to ensure that the rights of girls and women are recognized, respected and protected in every corner of Mexico and in the rest of the world. Thanks to the solidarity of great allies, our project "Ayúdalas a no llegar al altar " [“Help them not to reach the altar”] has achieved that 6,400 girls and adolescents, in the municipality of Metlatónoc, Guerrero, are no longer in danger of being sold for marriage. Every day se have more people interested in joining efforts for this cause, but there is still much more to do.
In the upcoming months, our team of local facilitators will return to action seeking more communities to join the signing of acts prohibiting the sale of girls and women in the municipality of Metlatonoc, Guerrero. We hope that in the next two years the program will reach 20 more localities with the aim of signing the act that criminalizes child marriages from our work with all the community actors involved in this practice.
Thanks to your support we can continue talking about this problem and our solution which represents a great story of social change that is helping many girls to change their destiny.
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A very special Children's Day
Within the framework of Children's Day in Mexico (May 8), we continue to spread awareness in relation to children's rights, using for this purpose an emblematic case in which a minor under 13 years of age was unfairly persecuted and detained by the police. community police officer in Guerrero, Mexico, wanting to flee from her forced marriage.
With the support of Media Monks and Oriental Films, a short film was created that conveys the helplessness in which thousands of girls and boys live in the country.
To Yo Quiero Yo Puedo, being able to expose these realities is an institutional mission that is renewed with each situation of injustice and violation of rights. Fortunately, we have had allies as committed to this issue as we are and with people like you who are concerned about adding their grain of sand to combat this reality: more than 132,431 people have seen the video on different social networks!!!
We hope that this interest in the subject translates into donations that allow us to continue raising awareness and working with communities and authorities to stop child marriage.
We share the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nbbwbaV5E and we invite you to continue supporting this initiative for more #NiñasenLibertad.
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Thanks to your support, we have managed to create links with a greater number of communities located at the high mountains of Guerrero to work on the eradication of child marriage, as well as early and forced unions. We currently have seven more agreements in which the local authorities and people have reaffirmed their commitment to eliminate this practice that violates the rights of girls and young people.
However, this is not enough, as we still have a lot of work to do: make Mexican society aware of this problem so that together we can all be part of a real and tangible change for them. Following this objective and with the pro bono support of an advertising agency, we created the campaign "Juanita's wedding", through which we state that the best gift that girls and young people can receive is not to get married, because that will allow them to have a full and free development in terms of decisions that help them build their life project.
From the launch of the campaign until February of this year we managed to impact +258,890 people on social networks, we generated +31,382 interactions and +37,161 video views; These figures show us that it is an important issue that we must continue to talk about and, of course, develop programs that generate positive change to reverse the problem.
We count on your valuable support, since with each contribution we will be able to continue creating awareness and having a public impact to protect the childhood of thousands of girls and young people in our country.
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