Today we had the opportunity to visit Matria- a non-profit organization that support and guide women who survived domestic violence relationships. We met with one of the social worker name Tanagra Melgarejo Pulido and the executive director, Amarilys Pagan. Both of them told us amazing stories of how Matria helped many women, who they called participants, to become self- sufficient and regain confidence in themselves. There are three programs that the participants may be put into depending on what they need. The first program is called Libera, which is a business incubator program to help the participants to become entrepreneurs. Matria offers 8-10 workshop sessions for the participants to take to get their business plan together and develop business skills. Once they have their business plan set up and approve, Matria will micro-lend loans to the participant to start their business. The interesting part is that Matria doesn’t get loans from the bank, instead they use their own funding to loan to their participants. Therefore, if the participants can’t pay back the loan on time Matria won’t be in a financial crsis.
The second program is called Atena and it’s for women who want to pursue a career in a male-dominate workforce, such as becoming a mechanic, bus driver and plumber. Matria helps break that sexism view and promote a more holistic view, where both genders can work together no matter what the job description is. Matria gets both private and government funding to help these women get to where they want to be.
The third program is called Gaya and it support the participants who want to pursue an education, whether that is a college or high school degree. Matria knows that Puerto Rico has a completive workforce, so they want to prepare their participants to be ready. Also, they give the participants the option to be involved in the Libera program, so they can start their own business if they choose to. Most of the social workers in Matria recommend the participants to start their own business because of the competitive workforce. Thus, the participants can be their own boss and be financially stable.
Moreover, Matria helps find houses for homeless women or those who need it. Matria is partner up with a federal program called Hut, which help pay the rent for these participants. The Hut program will renew the contract every three years if needed. The participants have to be clearly diagnose with a physical or/ mental issue by a doctor to be approve into this program.
Matria is slowly trying to become independent and raise their own funding, rather than relying on government funding. The reason for this is so they can have the choice to choose where the funding go to. Thus, they have decided to start their own online shopping store to help bring in capital. Their product consist of many things such as bags, aprons, baby clothes etc. The coolest part is that everything’s handmade from the staffs and participants.
After hearing about what Matria was all about I got more interested in it because of what they do for people, not only do they help women in domestic relationships, but they work with the GLBT community too. I think that all the accomplishment they made so far have really shaped society to not define gender role and become aware of human rights. Although, there are still more work to do, more people are finally starting to speak up for themselves, while others are starting to accept changes in society.
