MAKI International Project Proposal

A. General Information

Project Title: MAKI International / UNSCH Social Work Student Volunteer Program

Date: 21 September 2011

Points of Contact

MAKI Position Name Phone E-mail… … … …

B. Introduction

MAKI is a non-profit organization that works with women throughout Ayacucho, both in the local prison and within several smaller womens’ groups. MAKI provides the framework for creating, exporting, and selling the beautiful knit goods and handicrafts made using the Peruvian womens’ existing talents and traditions. We help empower women through enterprise and we work directly with women in need: giving them the resources necessary to lift themselves out of poverty and maintain healthy, productive lifestyles. We pay the women directly for their work and all our profits go back to the women in the form of classes, center improvements and empowerment events and activities.

Significant Accomplishments in MAKI International’s History

• The Womens’ Emergency Center: The womens’ emergency center is a resource location for women who are victims of domestic violence. We have held knitting classes at the center, employed interested women once they have completed our course, and provided empowerment activities for all participants. We offer the women an environment of solidarity and camaraderie, and provide them with the work skills and financial independence to escape their abuse.

• Rural Mothers' Groups: We bring knitting and embroidery programs directly to their already-established groups and employ them as small teams, thereby helping them make a living without being separated from their children.

• Incarcerated Women (INPE): We have completed several projects in the prison. Our first accomplishment was building a large shade structure in the quad area where the women spend most of their day, to protect from the brutal sunlight. We have also supplemented the lavatory facilities, that formerly consisted of two cubicles with holes in the ground, by adding two additional flushing toilets. Most recently we have completed improvements to the children's area by painting, replacing the tile floor and adding fencing to prevent dangerous falls in the playground area. Because we’ve made these changes, the state has agreed to send a teacher to the prison for the children every morning. We have most

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recently begun painting inspirational messages and drawings in the womens’ cell blocks to remind them that they can and should improve their lives.

These projects help rehabilitate the women, giving them job skills and a sense of self-worth so that, given another chance, they and their children might follow more productive and positive paths in their lives.

C. Problem Statement

In each of the several venues where MAKI is located, there are several – even hundreds – of stories of women who have suffered psychological, emotional, and physical trauma that has led to their failure, dejection or depression.

In the Emergency Center and Rural Womens’ Groups, spousal abuse and poverty have led many of the women to believe they are worthless, useless, and many have forgotten how to value themselves. Often, this mentality spreads to their children who follow the same path. These women lack the extensive psychological and emotional support and motivation that might allow them to lead more fruitful, content and productive lives – along with providing more ideal role models for their children.

In the prison, 1,700 inmates (including 200 women) are offered only two social workers, a devastatingly low number considering the distress they have all experienced and the real need for them to be rehabilitated so that they can function successfully in society upon their release. With so few staff on hand to help with casework and ensure the women are attended to, the womens’ case files are in disarray and are seldom kept up-to-date. Furthermore, many of the women have been abandoned while pregnant, and several have their children in the prison with them until the age of three, generating an even greater need for counseling and social assistance to help the women in raising healthy and happy children.

D. Goals and Evaluation

We would like to arrange a volunteer team composed of UNSCH’s social work students and professors to help MAKI attend to the psychological and emotional needs of the women in the prison as well as the womens’ groups.

Our goal is to provide the women in the prison with desperately needed one-on-one or small group counseling that is not provided by the state, which will help to rehabilitate them both within and outside the prison upon their release, as well as benefiting their children by improving the womens’ emotional stability and capabilities as mothers. We would also like assistance in updating and organizing the womens’ casework files so as to keep more accurate and current records of their psychological and emotional conditions. By providing these services to the prison’s women, we expect that a minimum of 30% of them will report increased self-confidence and decreased levels of depression within six months, as will be evaluated by MAKI and reported to UNSCH after the initial six month period has passed.

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