In Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities, where more than 22 million people reside, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is providing hope to a small group of adolescent mothers and children.
In Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, where more than 22 million people reside, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is providing hope to a small group of adolescent mothers and children.
ADRA Mexico recently opened a training center in the community of San Rafael to teach these mothers, ages 11 to 17, the sewing trade so they can earn money to support their children. The center was inaugurated Dec. 15.
“Our primary objective was to bring some hope to [this] group of girls who had been kicked out of their homes because of sexual abuse, pregnancy, or because they come from difficult situations in their homes and have been literally left out on the streets, abandoned,” says Rafael Garcia, ADRA Mexico director.
Garcia notes the project was taken up by ADRA after the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Portales, through the Seventh-day Adventist Metropolitan Conference, or local church area, began visiting La Casa de las Mercedes (Mercedes’ House), a private assistance institution that has kept its doors open for more than 10 years to homeless pregnant girls and offered them shelter, food, care and love. The home currently houses 82 young mothers and their children.
Pastor Miguel Angel Giron and the members of the Portales Church began collecting food items for La Casa de las Mercedes. They started seeing more and more needs and contacted the ADRA Mexico office to ask if ADRA would take on the project, says Garcia.
“We began the project in July [2005] and were able to install the electrical wiring for their training center and equip it with all the needed supplies to get them started with eight sewing machines, tables, blackboard, fabric and all the sewing tools they will need,” Giron adds.
“ADRA is so pleased to help the girls. It will be a sort of occupational therapy for the girls and bring them opportunity to acquire skills and provide a better life for themselves and their children, and they will eventually sell clothes,” he continues.
Pastor Wally Amundson, ADRA director for Inter-America, was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony and says that there are several such projects throughout the Inter-America Adventist church region that are helping mothers and their children.
Garcia says other plans for the group include establishing a clothing line for children that will have the brand name “MAMA,” a Spanish acronym which, when translated, means Adolescent Mothers Looking Up.
