Learning with the girls at Centro Anay

My name is Carmen Munoz Franco. Two years ago, with the support of ALMA and Learning for Hope we launched the Centro Anay, which is a centre for at risk girls and human trafficking victims in the Cusco area. The centre provides esthetics training, computer classes, knitting, dance and yoga. The goal is to provide the girls with skills that will enable them to survive when they turn 18 and are asked to leave the orphanage.

When we started the project we had high hopes. We had a clear client base, we had a plan and we were going to change lives. In the beginning, the project unfolded with unbelievable success. The girls loved the centre and they were learning legitimate skills; even better, a local spa offered to provide specialized training for the girls when they completed their basic training in their centre.

But life has a way of putting you in your place and teaching you lessons. A year ago our star student, Jenny (girls names are changed), was asked to leave the orphanage. Naturally she came to me in a panic because she had nowhere to go. I asked around and the owner of the spa agreed to both give her a job and a home. We were all so happy because we had found a happy solution to the problem. Two days later, Jenny had disappeared from the house and returned to her village, but not before taking money from the salon. We lost the support of the salon. At the same time, another one of the girls, Sara, had been showing amazing skill in the salon. She was given the opportunity to serve clients in the centre in the afternoons and make money. She worked five months with dedication and managed to develop a client base from the women in the surrounding neighborhood. One day she left and did not come back. The next day we realized that all of the professional tools she was using were gone.

At this point I was struggling. I felt betrayed. When I started the centre, I did not imagine the girls would let me down that way.

But two weeks ago, something beautiful happened. Jenny came back. Out of nowhere she showed up and asked if she could take the computer classes again. I was shocked.

I was even more startled when Sara showed up at my house three days ago and asked if she could start working with her clients again in the afternoons. (She is five months pregnant and she told me that she had left because she felt like she had let me down and did not know how to tell me the news.)

I learned very important lessons from those girls.

Working with “at risk girls,” or any people for that matter, is not linear. Just because I wanted the girls to learn and re-establish what we would consider to be a normal life, did not mean that they were ready to do so; or knew how to do so. Just because we found a home for a girl did not mean that she was ready to make a new home for herself.

Just because we got a job for somebody, did not mean that she could exist in the confines of society. But most importantly, if the door is open and there is a place of refuge, when the time is right, maybe people like Jenny and Sara will come back.

When I look back, it is clear that I was too eager for success stories. My eagerness for success stories made me forget that the stories of the lives of the girls will continue to unfold with peaks and valleys. Just because Jenny and Sara strayed from the path that I wanted them to take, does not mean that they are not success  stories. I just need to keep my door open and wait for them to find success in their time and based on their own definition of success.