On Monday, July 6th, I arrived in Mexico City for the central LiA with Make_sense. In the first days, we met with Make_sense Mexico leaders, Kenia and Aide, who helped us settle in Mexico and prepared us for our first immersion visit with our respective organizations.
About my project
For this project, I’ll be working with an organization called Las Sabinas. Our goal is to strengthen child sexual violence prevention by creating playful materials, such as games and puppets,that offer accessible, friendly, and safe tools for children to understand topics that are often too sensitive to address explicitly.
During our first immersion with Las Sabinas, we learned more about the landscape of gender-based violence in Mexico. Seven out of 10 women here have experienced some form of harassment or sexual violence, an estimate that is much higher than the global average. Most victims reported experiencing these harms at ages under 30.
What surprised me most was how high teenage pregnancy rates are, especially for girls aged 10 to 14. Every day, 22 girls aged 10–14 become mothers. This, combined with the realities of the communities Las Sabinas works with (peripheral areas in the State of Mexico), creates a particularly difficult environment. In these areas, infrastructure has collapsed, and many people have not had access to clean water for over two years. Many also commute daily using cable carts in order to earn more money. On top of these conditions, there are multiple layers of stigma related to race, territory, and gender, which make gender-based violence even harder to prevent and challenge.
Overall, the situation creates a harsh reality, but it also highlights why this cause is so urgent and important. My group has already developed some initial narratives and ideas for how we will approach the project. These ideas are guided by Las Sabinas’ principles, including: not placing responsibility on children or victims, not engaging in victim blaming, avoiding an “adult savior” complex, and respecting children’s autonomy, among others.
Other meaningful experiences
On Thursday, July 7th, we visited the recycling plant of Rennueva. Mexico has weak infrastructure in many areas, and environmental laws are often underdeveloped. Rennueva isn’t only a plastic recycling company, instead they also work extensively on policy, including winning lawsuits against the government to help establish and enforce stronger regulations.
I spoke with the CEO of Rennueva, who shared that most of their donors are individuals, not companies or institutions. They ask donors to bring cleaned used plastic, not plastic that’s been washed with water, but items that have been wiped clean instead, since Mexico has historically low water levels right now.
In the photo below, you can see a bus used as a museum to teach people across Mexico about the importance of recycling and the process behind it. The visit was interactive, fun, and especially meaningful.