November 2, 2022
L: Sisters Marilyn (16) and Marisol (19); R: Marilyn (with clipboard) in her local health center
ASJ's Strong Communities programs offer a safe space for young people and their families to grow, build leadership, and pursue change. Two sisters share how their involvement in the programs has impacted their lives.
Marilyn and Marisol are sisters who live with their grandmother, aunt, and older sister in Nueva Suyapa, a bustling yet marginalized neighborhood in Tegucigalpa. Marisol is 19 years old and just started studying at university. She is quiet and speaks slowly and carefully.
Marilyn is a 16-year-old junior in high school who says 100 words for every 10 of Marisol’s. It is clear they love each other a lot. “We are really close. We do homework and housework together every day. Not that we don’t fight,” laughs Marilyn, “but we never stay mad at each other for long.”
Life is not easy for teenagers in Nueva Suyapa where violence and limited resources shape everyday life. As little girls, the sisters played outside with their friends all day without a thought of danger. But, now that they are older, they are more careful—they don’t walk by themselves or stay out past dark. They both have childhood friends who are now in gangs or have been killed.
But, Nueva Suyapa is their cherished community and the only home they know. They know who sells the best homemade coconut popsicles and can walk the path to school and their friends’ houses with their eyes closed.
For 10 years, Marilyn and Marisol participated in ASJ’s Strong Communities programs, including weekly mentor-led clubs focused on their holistic well-being. These clubs have shaped who they are; the sisters describe them as a place where they could play, create art, have conversations about God’s plan for them, and imagine their future selves.
Last year, Marilyn was chosen to join a group of social auditors who monitor Nueva Suyapa's health center. ASJ trains these volunteers to track honest recordkeeping, medicine availability, and fair treatment.
Marilyn was struck by how wearing a vest that said “Social Auditor” on the back gave her power.
"Well, authority, I guess," she reflects. "We could ask important questions and get answers. Usually no one listens to young people, especially doctors and nurses. But, when we were there with our vests, the staff was respectful. It seemed like that gave patients in the waiting room the courage to call out the staff when they said things [about health centers] that weren’t true.”
Marilyn and Marisol wear shirts that say, "I love community auditing."
Nueva Suyapa is their cherished community and the only home they know.
Along with Marilyn, Nueva Suyapa’s auditors have developed an improvement plan for the local health center to increase quality of care and prevent corruption. ASJ’s work at the community level has always been the foundation of what we do. Our community programs help develop leaders who become advocates for their own neighborhoods.
These leaders help us all to understand how to make communities safer and schools and health centers stronger.
Marisol is studying journalism and Marilyn wants to be a police officer (she admits that many people are trying to talk her out of that goal). Both sisters are excited about the future, but recognize that not all of their friends share their hopeful outlook.
Marisol remarks that ASJ's programs helped her realize that we must invest in youth if we want to build stronger communities. “It’s not easy to stay hopeful when you grow up in a community like ours. I think if we all encouraged each other to keep going and to get involved in making our community better, it would make a big difference.”
