Social exclusion and violence:
Education for social cohesion

The YELA Woman's Home

Talca, Chile

The YELA Woman's Home, a social non-profit organization, lies on a two-program basis:
1- Women learning with women,
2-Communicating together, we can prevent (Young People Area), health program prevention and young people's sexual and reproductive rights, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy and family violence. There are also personal, development and mental health workshops (to recover self-esteem and learn to value oneself), and home and sexual violence workshops addressed to women in the region. A civic action simulation has been carried out to teach women how to vote to recover democracy after several years of dictatorship.
By these means, they are trying to transmit information to the children, especially to girls, about how to prevent violence situations. Besides, the YELA home provides infrastructure for the security of women, adolescents, boys and girls. In fact, it can provide them with several weeks or months of refuge in case of emergency. Many activities are carried out with women and young people belonging to poor social strata (shantytowns).

From the YELA home, many activities are done in the area of women's health. The home offers women of the region and high school girls, several workshops on the right to decide about their sexuality, reproduction and use of contraceptive methods. There are also talks, forums, videos, seminars and special meetings, as part of the activities. The YELA Home participates, as an organization, in many events against violence (especially affecting women) both inside and outside the country.

This initiative responds to the excessive violence against women existing in the region of Talca, which also has a high degree of unemployment, alcoholism and drug-addiction. At that time the country was under a military dictatorship regime. A group of 12 women, serving the Christian community of Talca, began working in 1986. Finally, in 1995, the YELA Women's Home was founded as a social non-profit organization, which counts today on legal personality.

Leonarda Gutiérrez Bravo
YELA Women's Home
Villa Las Palmas
37 Aragon Ave.
14 South
P.O. Box 917 Talca, CHILE 71234988
The organization is within different networks: REMOS International Women Organizations, regional REMOS, home and sexual violence network, health forum network and women's sexual and reproductive rights, etc.

Institutional Partners
Carabineros (Uniformed Police Force), Investigation Police, Courts, Court of Appeal, regional hospital, clinics, schools, children day care centers. Ministry of Justice Regional Secretary, parliamentarians and other regional organizations and Sports and Recreation Board, Talca.
Financial Partners
Diakonia Agency, Local Solidarity Organization (SOL), Terre des Hommes (Men's Land), Switzerland.

The YELA Home was born in1986 (Christian Community). But the initiative, which has allowed the conformation of a group where women can participate, dates back to 1995. The activities have been carried out since 1996.

Terre des Hommes, Switzerland.