The day invites you to sit in the patio, under the coolness of the trees, sharing a good coffee, talking about fears, desires, but also hopes for a better life. Some of the women who share that café are already on their way to improving, others have just arrived, but they all have in common that they are part of El patio de mi casa, a pioneering project that takes place at the Municipal Reception Center (CMA ) of Santa Cruz, where homeless women are being cared for with a gender perspective, because if being a woman still has many conditioning factors in today’s society, if they also suffer from homelessness, with situations of prostitution, or addictions, the obstacles multiply by a thousand, and that is what El patio de mi casa tries, to provide these women with the necessary tools to advance.
“I am in the CMA and I feel good. On the street I was not well, I felt overwhelmed, stressed, afraid. In the module there are other ladies with whom we make groups, talk, have coffee… And here I am, waiting to solve things and get out of here soon”, says one of the users of this project that has been running for two years now. , and in which they work with groups of between 10 and 30 homeless women. “I have been in prostitution for many years, I have suffered a lot. Physically and mentally that kills. What I would like is for more women not to suffer from this life because they see themselves tied hand and foot, with children, who think they will not be able to support them, and see no other way out”, reflects another of the women in the group.
As the person in charge of the initiative, Jenny Hernández Martín, explained to DIARIO DE AVISOS, “from the technical team we realized that with the intervention of women from the offices it was not enough, because we detected that they mostly had, if not the 100%, a problem of gender violence, which they suffered at that time or had just suffered it”. It was then that a parallel project to the individual intervention in the offices was thought of. “We convened with all the doubts in the world because we did not know the answers we were going to have and El patio de mi casa was born,” says Hernández.
And it is that, as the person in charge of El patio points out, “if we describe a woman who, in addition to being on the street, presents other associated problems of mental health, addiction, prostitution, loss or separation from her sons and daughters, we find ourselves before the maximum expression of social exclusion: female homelessness”.
Hernández explains that “violence, abuse, intimidation, loss, loneliness, are the common tonic of any homeless woman’s life story told in the offices of social professionals. El Patio de mi casa was born with an eye toward the motivating social transformation of these women”. “It is therefore a matter -he continues- that the woman is a promoter and propositional agent of her own change and that of her environment. It is a casual space where women have a voice and visibility, growing individually, in groups and socially. It has a changing scenario, so that the usual classroom is replaced by the courtyards of the center, orchards, rooftops or even in an outdoor environment as an insertion into the community. Planted around a café, she pursues herself above all to put a face to an invisible group ”.
The person in charge of the program details that “we hold sessions in the traditional classroom, with professionals from home and abroad, and there we put topics that we want them to know about, and above all related to the detection of sexist violence, but also gynecology issues , of female empowerment, of benzodiazepines, because many times they end up on medication without even being listened to. It is about empowering them so that they are the ones who defend their fundamental rights before the public administrations and those places they go to, and they do not have to be accompanied by a professional who protests so that their rights are fulfilled”.
The reality faced by homeless women often involves events as traumatic as going to report a rape and their homelessness taking precedence over the fact that they have gone to report it. “Although it sounds very hard to say it -says Hernández- the reality is that when a girl is raped who, for example, was jogging, a protocol is immediately activated, the media echoes it, we are all outraged. When this happens to a homeless woman, the mere fact of filing a complaint for a sexual assault means a re-victimization for them at the police station, where they question it, or even do not want to take the complaint, and the same in the centers of health. So it always costs them a little more, and if they also have addictions it still costs much more, as if they were deserving of that aggression. That is where she tries to work El patio de mi casa, in that idea that they have rights and that they have to demand them ”.
The work that is carried out with this project ranges from the most classic sessions in the classrooms, to the content tying sessions that take place in the CMA courtyard, around a coffee shop, in which what has been learned is discussed. “For example, if a gynecologist comes and talks to us about sexually transmitted diseases, our commitment is that we all get a Pap smear, and that everyone will take care of themselves. Then on an individual level we make an appointment. It must be taken into account that many of the women who have been prostituted have not been examined in ten years,” Hernández details.
To these sessions are added others that are also vital for the users, and that Hernández calls “the sessions just because”, in which “we laugh and talk about anything because that is also important”.
The success of the program is manifested by the recognition that the University of La Laguna has given it, inviting the group to give talks on the group intervention methodology that they are applying, talks in which not only the professionals but also the women protagonists of the program participate. program, recounting their group experience. A recognition that they have also received from the University of Mallorca, where they have also been invited to give talks.
But without a doubt, the greatest success is the one achieved among the women users of the CMA. “They feel super welcomed, and many are already empowered”, asserts the person in charge of the program, adding that, “it has also helped us to greatly improve coexistence. The patio of my house has become a space for sharing, sisterhood, understanding and support”, explains the social worker.
To this day, it is the women who ask for the patio sessions, and many of those who have already completed their process at the CMA continue to attend the sessions. A group in which women of all ages and condition live together. “We have had groups in which the youngest was 19 years old and the oldest 90, with a very good coexistence. Now the youngest is 25 and the oldest is 80, although she is no longer in the CMA, she continues to attend the sessions, ”Hernández details.
The next step is to open up to the community. “With regard to the neighborhood, we want to do sessions outside and invite women from the area, who are not users. We have already started a series of conferences with certain professionals from the center, whom they have chosen, but we also want to invite the president of the neighborhood association or the director of the school”.
