The Daughter Project Girls Club Program
Why Girls Clubs?
In rural communities all over El Salvador, girls as young as 13-14 years old come to believe that in order to have future hope and security, they must give themselves away sexually to a man. They become pregnant and give birth to that man’s children in hopes that he will stay and take care of them. With an abandonment rate of 80-90 percent, we can see that this isn’t working. Along with this, incest is practiced at alarming rates, with a shockingly acceptable attitude towards it in families. In order to survive and put food on the table, mothers, who have often been victimized themselves, make the tragic decision to sacrifice their daughter’s safety. We want to teach girls (and their mothers) truth, and we want to empower them with tools to protect themselves. They are MUCH MORE than their bodies! We want to teach them what real love is. Our desire is to reach young girls at this impressionable age, before the pervasive cultural norms have reached into their hearts convincing them that the only way to survive is to find a man to “love” them.
What are we doing about it?
In the spring of 2016, we began The Daughter Project Girls Club program. God has given us a vision to reach girls in rural communities between the ages of 8-15 with the empowering truth that their value is not merely their physical bodies, but, in the person of worth that God has created them to be.
Our clubs are led by the young women of our Hope House program. As part of our program, each young woman opens a club in her own community. Using bible lessons, games, crafts, small group discussions, and journaling the girls experience a unique, truth-saturated time together. Because our leaders live in the communities where their clubs are, they are able walk alongside of these girls to encourage them and their families. Within each club, our leaders begin to raise up co-leaders who volunteer alongside the them. As the girls serve in this capacity, we keep our eye on them, watching and waiting to see if God would lead us to give her the opportunity to be considered as a possible future Hope House resident.
Our Tools
1. The Bible. Our foundation, as a ministry, is the Word of God and we weave biblical truth throughout everything that we do.
2. The curriculum. The curriculum that we are using in our clubs has been developed by Global Family (https://www.globalfamily.care/) specifically for use as a tool to prevent abuse and trafficking. As stated on the Global Family site: “At the heart of the Daughter Project
is the belief and conviction that each of these girls is as precious as
our own daughter. For this reason, we place our greatest emphasis on prevention. We want to protect these daughters from being at risk,
taken, lured away, and abused.”
In 2016, Hope for Families was given the opportunity to bring The Daughter Project curriculum into Latin America. We have translated it into Spanish and have made it culturally relevant to Latin American countries. We are very excited to be a part of bringing this life-changing material into El Salvador where it is so desperately needed.
We are empowering girls with truth and giving them tools to help them mature and thrive in all areas of their lives: spiritually, emotionally and physically. Our vision is to raise up young women who will become agents of change in their families and in their communities.
With our Hope House women’s home/scholarship program, we can offer those girls something to work towards. Not only giving them hope, but, providing the opportunity they need to put feet to their dreams while they continue to grow in their relationship with Christ through our discipleship program.