SHIFTING CULTURE, INFORMING DECISIONS
Pa’Arriba Foundation focuses primarily on intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, and family violence, but a holistic view of the subject matter merits also taking into account community violence, especially in regards to vulnerable populations. For this reason, in its on-the-ground work in Ecuador, Pa’Arriba Foundation’s No Más en Ecuador program provides a centralized information hub with resources for numerous at-risk groups, including women, children and youth, LGBTQ+ and people in situations of human mobility.
Founded in 2013, the No Más en Ecuador program takes its name and logo from the international conversation about domestic violence and sexual abuse known as No More. In addition to its significant and previously unavailable centralized information resource, the program offers numerous outreach activities. These include communications campaigns focused on violence prevention and resiliency education available on both digital and traditional media platforms, including a series of community radio programs.
Another main area of focus for the program is cultural transformation, a rethinking of societal values regarding traditional gender roles that often lead to unhealthy relationships and can set the stage for violence.
Changing people’s culture is not easy. But it’s also not impossible. And the most powerful calls to change come from culture itself.
That is the rationale behind “From Caterpillar to Butterfly: Awakening to Transformation” (“De Oruga a Mariposa: Despertar para Transformar”), a proprietary music and arts-based workshop that gently and playfully provokes reflection about traditional gender roles and values with the goal of awakening a process that will lead to the denormalization of gender-based violence. Originally developed with a grant from the US Embassy in Quito, Ecuador, the workshop – which uses the No More, No Más anthem song as a stimulant to reflection – has been successfully piloted with both homogeneous and mixed gender and age groups, in community, school and corporate settings.
