Hello,
A month ago my teammates and I arrived at our ministry site, Transforma.
Transforma is a non profit organization that helps women who are low income, single/elder mothers, women who don’t have regular income, don’t have health insurance, lack education, and/or are in extreme hardships. Transforma takes in these women to develop self-care and people skills to promote change in their outcome in life and become leaders in their community. During this 10 month program, women have the opportunity to participate in sewing, massage, manicure/pedicure, sales and marketing, and entrepreneurship. Not only does this program promote life lessons but also works to create long term relationships with the women.
To help them out, our team worked on a variety of projects. Office work included data entry, organizing files/documents, sorting through files with missing information, and creating a calendar for Transforma’s events. In addition to office work, we each chipped in with chores (sweeping, mopping floors, dusting, dishes, cleaning the kitchen, yard work & laundry). When the women would come to participate in their classes in the morning (7:30 to 12:00), we would provide a chance for the moms to leave their kids with us. The kids range from babies to 9 years old. Half of our team would play with the kids and the other half would serve coffee to women. Then the women would work on life skills (cleaning dishes, sweeping and mopping, putting classroom supplies away, etc.). Once they were done, the women would pick up their kids to head home.
On the days we did not have classes, some members of our team would go into the neighborhood to see the women, strike up conversations, and pray for them. As the month progressed it was neat to start to build up relationships with them. Seeing them in class and after class, even running into them at the grocery store and having conversations!
The work we did in Costa Rica was a huge help to them, even those simple tasks as office work made an impact in the Transforma organization. It’s these types of small impacts can lead to bigger impacts down the road.
