Cristina grew up a couple of blocks from the garbage dump. As she grew up, she watched girl after girl drop out due to unplanned pregnancy, and she promised she wouldn’t be the same. When she fell in love with Bryan at 19, she immediately approached multiple trusted adults to discuss contraceptive options. Months went by before Cristina was able to receive the support she needed.

Guatemala Youth Initiative’s teen pregnancy prevention program opened in mid June of 2018 and began offering free and accessible contraceptives to young adults and adolescents. When Cristina’s mentors finally brought her to our center in early July, she was the second young woman to approach GYI for help. She was excited to take this step for her health and her future.

However, through our screening process, it became clear that Cristina was already pregnant. Her heart broke right in front of us, and she couldn’t stop crying. She was devastated, and so were we, as the community had no program for young mothers.  We heard weeks later that she had dropped out of school, and she stopped answering phone calls.

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In the following months, as Cristina struggled alone with her pregnancy, our staff began planning an expansion into programs for young mothers. Her story served as a wake up call; we needed to be providing a more holistic approach with the adolescent population. We realized that our work with youth could not continue to be one-sided; pregnancy prevention was a great start, but it was not enough. We knew we needed to do everything in our power so that young women never left our center without support. With generous help from our donors, our Young Mother Support Program began taking shape. Parenting workshops, individual attention, emotional support, and celebration of new life became another focus for Guatemala Youth Initiative as 2018 drew to a close.

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Cristina reappeared at the end of 2018, very pregnant and very nervous. This time we were ready; she received one-on-one attention from our trained staff to resolve her doubts about the changes in her body and her fears about motherhood. She came back again and again with more questions as her due date approached. When her daughter was born at the end of January 2019, Cristina called our staff immediately. She continued to receive support and in late April, participated in our newly launched workshops series for teen moms.

Ten months after her initial visit to Guatemala Youth Initiative, Cristina finally received what she had originally been looking for: her first ever contraceptive method. She left our center with her new daughter on her hip, prepared with both information about motherhood and the security that she will not have another unplanned pregnancy.

Cristina’s story served as an inspiration and a guide for our staff as we launched new programs this year, and each day we are reminded of how important this expansion has been for the young women of the community.  Just last week, a fourteen year old girl discovered her pregnancy in our office and began to cry. This time, we were able to respond immediately.