Global Reach: Past Grantees
Asociación Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho
In Colombia’s Caribbean region, nearly 70% of households live below the poverty line, and women are particularly vulnerable: they have higher rates of unemployment and lower rates of schooling than their male counterparts, and they are vulnerable to violence and discrimination in both the public and the private sphere. Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho (MAD) was founded in 2003 by young women lawyers and law students from the city of Barranquilla to address women’s vulnerability through legal support, community organizing, advocacy, and research. Since 2003, MAD has provided legal support and orientation to over 1,000 women, worked with 34 rural women’s associations in Colombia’s Caribbean region, and convened a network of nearly 300 adolescent girls and young women focused on building young women’s leadership, amplifying their voices, and ensuring that youth-focused public policies and programs address their concerns and priorities.
EMpower’s fourth grant to MAD will formalize the Barranquilla Coalition for Adolescent Girls (BCAG) as an operational network made up of 5 local organizations serving adolescent girls to 1) strengthen girls’ skills to work together within the BCAG; and 2) strengthen the BCAG as a collective force and voice before the public (girls’ communities, the media, universities, local and national governments).
EMpower’s fifth grant to MAD will support their Semilleros program to continue working with 80 girls from the Atlantic department and extend their work to 40 girls in the Bolivar department and 40 girls in the Magdalena department focused on strengthening girl leaders’ skills and supporting them to conduct activities with new groups of girls. In addition, they will advocate that human right and sexual/reproductive health and rights be added as a subject into secondary schools.
Our Underwriters pay for all of our administrative and fundraising costs, so 100% of your donation goes directly to empowering at-risk youth.
