After so much pain and the struggle to get my case to court, and so much rejection and loneliness, I discovered that there are countless children and adolescents who suffer what I suffered, and who have nowhere to go, no door to knock on. So I decided to dedicate my life to preventing others from going through what I went through and to ensuring that if they did, they would find a comforting place to go.
When I was seventeen, I began dreaming about creating a comforting place for victims of sexual abuse to go. I shared my dream with my parents, and shortly after with their support, we started Centro Una Brisa de Esperanza (CUBE). CUBE started as an NGO where victims of sexual abuse could come to have someone who listened, but CUBE rapidly grew into a center offering legal, social, and psychology support. It has become a center where each child and adolescent victim receives comprehensive assistance and is provided a support system. Many volunteers and professionals have joined this project to help offer this assistance.
CUBE is the only center in the Country of Bolivia specializing in the comprehensive assistance (i.e. legal, social, and psychological services) of children and adolescent victims of sexual abuse. In the center I help organize national efforts in Bolivia to raise awareness of child sexual abuse and frequently give conferences on the psychological and neurological damage caused by child sexual abuse. I also organize therapy programs, such as dance therapy, music therapy, art therapy and other alternative forms of therapy.
In addition to working with therapy, I have conducted sociological and legal research, which has been used to support legal reform in Bolivia. In 2009, I conducted the largest research ever conducted on child sexual abuse in Bolivia. The study had 4,000 participants, and found that 34% of the children and adolescents in Bolivia suffer sexual abuse before age 18. The findings of this research have been heavily cited by various NGOs and Government agencies. Currently, this research is being used throughout South America and Africa. An international organization has produced copies for distribution to NGOs and Governments around the world. Also, as a law student I have been able to work closely with the attorneys in CUBE, and conduct extensive research on how children are re-victimized in the procedural processes leading to trial.
However, my largest efforts in the past years have gone to “The March.” The March began as a dream, a crazy idea of mine when I was 17. My dream was to show victims of sexual abuse that they are not alone, that there were more good people than bad. With this motivation, I started speaking in universities and on T.V. to encourage others to join me in the March.
No one thought the March would succeed. Nevertheless, I gave my best efforts to organize a march through the City of Cochabamba Bolivia, with the purpose of raising awareness of child sexual abuse, demanding just trials from the local Prosecutors and Judges, and letting victims know that they are not alone. I expected that no more than 100 people would show up. To my surprise, over 5,000 people showed up the day of the march!
As we marched through the city, our numbers grew larger. When we arrived to the main plaza of the city, the Mayor and Prefect of Cochabamba greeted us, and endorsed our activities. Each year afterward, we have had similar numbers, and each year increasing numbers of Government officials have marched with us, including police officers, prosecutors, and judges. The Chief Judge of the Superior Court of Justice (the highest regional appellate court) marches with us each year. And perhaps most exciting, the day of the March, August 9th, has been declared by Governmental decree the “National Day against Child Sexual Abuse and In Solidarity with Victims of Sexual Abuse.” The march has spread to 6 of the 9 departments of Bolivia.
Currently, CUBE has a staff of 16 professionals and 10 volunteers. These professionals dedicate their lives not only to handling the 670 active cases that we currently have, but to creating social awareness of the problem in schools, universities, and in the Government.
My dream is to buy a permanent location for CUBE, so that the children and adolescents have a stable location to which they can go for help. Right now CUBE is located in a rented building, and because our funding is not consistent year in and year out we have had to move from building to building to accommodate to our financial situation. The constant moves from one location to another are hard on the children. To continue offering comprehensive assistance to the children and adolescents, conducting research on the problem, and raising awareness in society, CUBE needs a stable platform from which to launch its various operations for the benefit of children and adolescent victims of sexual abuse. The salaries of the staff and the center’s activities depend completely on donations. Any donation or grant will help to keep CUBE alive.
