Success Stories

Mina in India
Genet in Ethiopia
Cynthia in Paraguay
Clarence in the United States
Elvia in the Dominican Republic
Felipe in Paraguay
Shanthi in India
Abdul in Senegal

Elvia

Movement for International Self-Development and Solidarity (MAIS)
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic

For 13-year-old Elvia, life in the Dominican Republic’s resort town of Puerto Plata is hardly a vacation. Since her parents separated, Elvia’s mother has chosen to settle with her new husband and two young sons. Elvia must live with her grandmother who, as a single older woman, is hard-pressed to make ends meet. At such a young age, Elvia, along with hundreds of other impoverished children in her community, must make a difficult choice between pursuing her education or earning a living in order to support herself. Sadly, with little incentive or encouragement to stay in poorly-funded schools and few legitimate opportunities to earn money, girls such as Elvia are easily lured into Puerto Plata’s lucrative sex tourism industry. Defenseless to the physical and sexual abuse that so often accompanies prostitution, these young children find themselves in one of the most vulnerable and exploited groups of Puerto Plata’s society.

Fortunately for Elvia, the community-based organization MAIS (translated into English as International Solidarity Self-Development Movement) has provided her with an alternative to the commercial sex trade. Founded in 1998, MAIS strives to motivate children to stay in school and to prevent initial or continued sexual exploitation by offering academic support and social services to at-risk and exploited youth. Operating on an annual budget equivalent to $28,000, MAIS focuses on preventative work, providing children with the skills and confidence that allow them to create social opportunities for themselves without resorting to prostitution. Although the young people who participate in MAIS are not usually former sex workers, many of them are victims of sexual and physical abuse inflicted at home or on the streets.

MAIS’s Training for Life community center is a supplementary school program that serves sixty-two boys and girls in the Limonera neighborhood of Puerto Plata. These children and young teens attend classes at MAIS three times a week either before or after their part-time formal school day. In addition to instruction in core curriculum subjects such as writing, reading, mathematics, and science, the children participate in workshops on human rights and the special rights of children and can take advantage of vocational and craft workshops. The MAIS staff works closely with the children’s families and teachers in an effort to reinforce the value of staying in school and pursuing productive opportunities in life. Elvia, who has participated in MAIS’s program for more than a year, proudly says that she has learned much in the academic areas of math, history, and science, but more importantly, Elvia reports, “I have learned how to depend and take care of myself.”

MAIS is part of the worldwide ECPAT (Ending Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking) network. With members in more than fifty countries, ECPAT advocates for the elimination child prostitution, child sex tourism, child pornography, and trafficking of children for sexual purposes. In September 2002, a teenage MAIS participant will represent all ECPAT’s Latin American partners at the ECPAT board of director’s meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

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