This July 180 women, girls and boys from the Centre de Promotion Sociale de Tenke will be completing a seven-month vocational education program, their eyes are filled with hope as they embark on a wholly new chapter of their lives -- economic independence. HEAR CONGO is an organization that teaches literacy and numeracy and provides job training and entrepreneurship to women and girls displaced by the eight years of war Congo has suffered.
At this vocational school these beneficiaries of HEAR CONGO have been learning literacy and other avenues of education tracks to learn a trade. Seventy percent of the girls between the ages of 13 and 17 are teen mothers. They have either been abandoned by their boy friends or married too early and simply left behind with their children. They now have a future in which they can support themselves and their children.
My name is Fiorella Marquez I hold a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Florida International University. I am currently a mental health clinician in training, finishing my master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling at Nova Southeastern University. I am thrilled that I will be going to Congo this summer and joining a group of licensed psychologists to examine the mental and emotional well-being of the graduates at the vocational school. We will run exit interviews to make sure these women, girls and young men are ready to embrace their new life with pride, dignity, courage and confidence. Your donation today will help cover travel costs to make this dream come true for women and girls in Congo…and me.
www.hearcongo.org
