What WE Do
The
Problem
Sexual violence against children is a global pandemic.
As many as 29% of male children and 36% of female children have suffered sexual violence. It is considered the most under-reported violent crime, with between 74 to 81 percent of cases never being reported to the police. In approximately 85% sexual violence cases, the crime committed by someone close to or known to the victim.
Sexual violence against children and adolescents has been shown to impart severe psychological, health, neurobiological, and social problems. Short-term and long-term consequences include:
depression
substance abuse
suicide
increased risk for severe obesity & physical inactivity
social withdrawal
attachment disorders
sleep disorders
low self-esteem
inability to trust
negative schemas about people in general
sexuality problems
self-punishment
pathological dependency
self-mutilation
selective reconstruction of reality
splitting of reality
hysterical reactions
cognitive infexibility
altered consciousness
projection of rage
domestic martydom
delinquency
Sadly, these social and psychological disorders are only a few of the many coping mechanisms that children and adolescents develop to survive the reality of continual sexual violence.
Bolivia has the highest rates of sexual violence against women and children in all of Latin America, but one of the lowest rates of reporting to officials. 70% of all Bolivian women suffer the horrors of sexual violence (more than half when they were children). 1 in every 3 girls and 1 in every 5 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. “In the United States, every 2 minutes another American is sexually assaulted. Each year there are about 237,868 reported cases of sexual violence in the US. 44% of these victims are under age 18.”
The
Solution
PREVENTION:
A main pillar of Breeze of Hope’s work is focusing on preventing childhood sexual violence and promoting safe and healthy communities for children. Our prevention strategies challenge the social constructions which drive sexual violence against children, including androcentrism and adultcentrism.
National & International Advocacy
We engage in international human rights advocacy and strategic litigation to create regional precedent and bring national-level legislation in line with established international human rights law, while partnering with various organizations and coalitions to campaign and advocate for survivors of sexual violence.
Public Policy & Legal Reform
We advocate for legal and policy reforms at national and international levels to prevent childhood sexual violence and increase access to healing and justice for survivors. We have pushed for critical reforms such as abolishing the statute of limitations and redefining rape statutes to focus on the absence of consent and worked with government officials to implement upstream interventions and set national priorities for violence prevention and investment in early childhood development.
Social Activism
A Breeze of Hope conducts high-impact social activism through frequent public information campaigns, utilizing various media outlets including radio, television, printed press, and social media.
Research & Public Reform
A Breeze of Hope has published training manuals, research documents, and protocols to provide practical guidance and theoretical frameworks to advocates, government officials, and field practitioners to engage in prevention activities and provide high-impact services to survivors.
Early Childhood Development
A Breeze of Hope engages in upstream interventions during early infancy to increase resilience and reduce the propensity for violence in society by working with governments, health systems, communities, and families to implement early childhood development programming based on key health determinants and operates an early childhood development center with a focus on core life skills development.
Healing & Justice:
A Breeze of Hope’s Healing and Justice pillar focuses on providing for victims. These activities aim at early detection and intervention when society fails to protect children from sexual violence. A Breeze of Hope takes comprehensive action to build healing communities and help survivors rediscover their inner strength and the joy of life.
Personal Healing
A Breeze of Hope utilizes evidence-based practices and a variety of modalities to help child survivors of sexual violence rediscover their inner strength and joy of life, while recognizing the trauma's impact on the body and mind and helping survivors develop an embodied awareness of their trauma and experience paths of healing.
Non-Offending Family Healing
A Breeze of Hope emphasizes the importance of community in trauma healing, providing support and encouragement for survivors and their non-offending families through mutual connections with other families, fostering an "economy of care" and offering essential life skills, healthy lifestyle habits, and positive stress coping mechanisms to promote sustainable long-term healing.
Education
A Breeze of Hope recognizes the importance of education in the self-empowerment, socio-economic advancement, and long-term healing of survivors of childhood sexual violence, providing community-based social support, after-school tutoring, and support for collegiate and university studies.
Political Participation & Activism
A Breeze of Hope empowers survivors of childhood sexual violence to be active agents in community and government decision-making processes related to prevention, healing, and justice, as they recognize the deeply political nature of healing and emphasizes the importance of survivor-led programs and safe spaces.
Economic Independence
A Breeze of Hope Foundation facilitates economic empowerment for survivors by providing courses on financial literacy, budgeting, inventory management, marketing, and vocational training programs to help survivors and their non-offending family members find employment or start their own small businesses, which is a vital component of trauma recovery.
Training:
A Breeze of Hope’s Training pillar works to build the capability of healthcare professionals, mental health professionals, justice system actors (police, prosecutors, judges, forensic physicians, etc.), educators, university students, and parents for prevention, healing, justice, and for trauma informed response to childhood sexual violence. The goal is to ensure that these individuals have the resources they need to provide victims with compassionate support when they disclose sexual violence. Just as an informed, trauma-sensitive response can positively change a child's life, so also can an uninformed, victim-blaming response shame a child back into silence, sometimes forever. We help train professionals in these areas:
Justice System Actors
The term "justice system actors" refers to police, prosecutors, judges, forensic physicians, and other professionals who are trained to respond to childhood sexual violence and help victims obtain justice.
Health System Professionals
"Healthcare professionals" are included in A Breeze of Hope's training pillar, which aims to equip them with the necessary resources to provide compassionate support to victims of childhood sexual violence.
Education System Sector- Educators, Schools, Universities, Postgraduate
A Breeze of Hope focuses on building the capacity of educators, schools, universities, and postgraduate students to prevent and respond to childhood sexual violence by providing sexual violence prevention and human rights awareness training, creating safe-disclosure-spaces and connecting children to necessary resources to disclose.
Human Services Sectors - Government Welfare Agencies, etc.
It’s important that those who are directly involved with legal change and human services are educated on the signs of child abuse and the importance it plays in many peoples’ lives.
Civil Society - Parents, Professionals, and Others
The work of A Breeze of Hope's training pillar aims to build the capability of parents and professionals for prevention, healing, justice, and trauma-informed response to childhood sexual violence.
Our Facilities and Centers
Fundacion Una Brisa de Esperanza, known locally as FUBE. It is Bolivia’s first and most specialized center that provides holistic services to child victims of sexual violence. Based in Cochabamba City, FUBE offers free legal, social, and psychological services to child victims of sexual violence and their non-offending family members. FUBE also works to prevent sexual violence through public awareness campaigns, training of government officials, and much more.
Comunidad Educativa para la Vida (CEV) offers educational services to children ages 6 months to 10 years old. CEV is based in an impoverished semi-urban neighborhood on the outskirts of Cochabamba, City. At CEV children and their families develop non-violent communication skills, human rights awareness, and ways to foster each child’s self-agency and healthy autonomy. CEV is a safe, nurturing environment that facilitates resilience processes and equips families with the skills and knowledge they need to transform their homes and communities with values of love, peace, and respect for human rights.
Semillas Del Cambio (SDC, Eng. Seeds of Change) is a Cochabamba based organization that focuses on holistic early childhood development. SDC provides expecting and new parents with a robust platform of childhood development programming, parental skills training, healthy child and parent attachment building activities, and nonviolent communication practices for parents and their children.
Fundación Familias Saludables (FFS, Eng., The Healthy Family Foundation) is based in Cochabamba, Bolivia and works to prevent violence against children and equip families with the skills they need to nourish healthy bonds and powerful resilience in the face of adversity. FFS collaborates with local schools, clinics, governments, and other programs to maximize the number of families who have access to its programming.
LET'S