The Madre Rosalia Cadron Women’s Center

The Women’s Center was founded at the beginning of the year 2000. This training center for women offers them a wide range of practical courses, including sewing, cooking, macrame, beauty, decoration using balloons, etc. These courses allow them not only to develop their professional skills, but also their self-esteem.

The technical aspect of these courses is supplemented by an economic component, through business advice, microcredit loans and the sale of the objects they make. The main objective of this component is to improve their precarious financial situations and their paths towards financial autonomy.

The Women’s Center  for many women of Pascuales becomes a small family where they find a social network which allows them to break the isolation they often found themselves in and to perfect the socialization in the community. The informal discussions that take place during the training sessions make it possible to exchange advice on various aspects of life, including parenting skills and mutual support.

Since its creation, more than 4,000 registrations have been recorded for all the training offered by the Center.

The Center relies on highly qualified Ecuadorian teachers who are fully proficient in the various techniques and knowledge that they transmit. Often becoming counselors and even friends, these teachers are greatly appreciated by their students.

For the past year, a psychological support program has also been set up and is part of the women’s center. It was thanks to the generous financial support of the Marcelle and Jean Coutu Foundation that the CEF worked in conjunction with the FASMRC team to hire a full-time psychologist. The psychologist’s work includes conducting clinical interventions with clients at the women’s center, children attending day-care centers (and their parents), as well as with beneficiaries of the sponsorship program. In addition, workshops are organized for children as well as for women. This program supports women, children in the day-care center, and their parents in a context where violence and poverty are omnipresent in everyday life.