The Centro de Mujeres Acahual (or the Acahualinca Women’s Center) began around 25 years ago and we were especially interested in this organization because it offered a variety of services to women and families within the community. The nurse we met with provided us with a detailed description and understanding of each of these services. The center was developed to serve 10 different sectors within the neighborhood but when Hurricane Mitch passed through, one of the sectors named Chureca, disappeared due to extreme flooding. This center is comprised of a team of 18 women and two men including one doctor and one nurse. The center was designed to provide citizens within these sectors education and resources to help them with legal assistance, health care issues and treatments, family planning, beauty school, support groups, after school classes and workshops for children, and advocacy. While all of these services are offered, not all of them are working according to plan which made us really nervous. For example, the legal services were created to help women with domestic violence issues and divorce. Domestic violence is a huge problem in Nicaragua due to its machismo culture and heavy patriarchy. The problem with this program is that the government does not really approve of or support it completely. The women engaged in this specific program wish to receive justice but aren’t able to due to a corrupt justice system or the cycle of violence they are trapped in. Some women will just give up after fighting this battle for many years instead of seeking help, knowing that they will never receive it. This center tries to advocate for women’s rights and justice for women but it can only do so much without government support. We really wanted to talk about this organization because its intentions are wonderful but it made us realize that stuff does not always go as planned. Sitting in a classroom and learning about obstacles versus seeing them in the real world has changed our perspective completely. The cause of bettering women’s lives around the community is wonderful and we love that the organization is dedicated to this mission but the lack of support was a wake up call for us. Sometimes, macro level changes need to be made before micro level ones can even be considered and this is a perfect example of that. We really enjoyed visiting and learning about this organization and hope that in the future, things could get better for all of the women and families in the community.

With much hope,
Halie Brillhart and Julia Warton

The Route to Justice