Nia Kali is a non-profit organization in Guayaquil, the most populated city in Ecuador. Girls, boys and adolescents come to it to carry out activities ranging from crafts and guided tasks, to dance and workshops on gender violence. It also provides a safe space for women, older adults and people with disabilities in the community.
Known as Trinipuerto, this community is part of the Isla Trinitaria sector, one of the most vulnerable, and sometimes violent, in the city. As its name suggests, a few kilometers away is the port of Guayaquil, one of the main ports in South America. This maritime giant helps satisfy not only the demand for fruit, fish and seafood from the rest of the world, but also that of cocaine.
According to data from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 73% of the cocaine produced worldwide transits through Ecuador. The increase in trafficking of this drug in the country has caused a wave of lethal violence, linked to local and transnational criminal groups, causing homicide rates to multiply by five between 2019 and 2022.
In this complex environment, the founder of the organization is clear about her role: “I am president of Nia Kali, an Afro-Ecuadorian leader and part of the initiative Women peacebuilders”.
His determination and commitment to the community emanate from personal experience. “Ten years ago, I suffered a situation of family violence with my daughter; here, in my house. Since they had no resources, no knowledge, no contacts, the situation remained unpunished.”he tells UN News. “I sold everything I had, but I couldn’t get justice. That motivated me to do everything possible so that it doesn’t happen to other people or other girls in the community.”
Santos explains that she began training as a community leader and holding workshops in her home. Her daughter, who had psychological consequences and who had had to spend many hours alone at home while her mother battled between the prosecutor’s office and the hospital, responded positively to the workshops and began to participate in them. “These activities became a personal struggle for both of us.”
“Today my daughter is a youth leader,” he points out proudly. “She works with a group of teenagers to whom she gives workshops. “She has trained as a comprehensive sexuality education counselor.”
Support networks
Santos highlights that the activities they carry out go beyond the walls of their foundation. Adolescent girls communicate what they have learned in their educational centers, and it often reaches the ears of other girls who are experiencing a situation of insecurity or violence.
Furthermore, a first support network emerges among colleagues with which they ask other entities, such as the foundation, for help. Seeing the impact it generated, he put more effort into it.
“That’s why I decided to contribute my house. I used to live here, in the lower part, but with the first activities more girls and boys began to arrive. I decided to leave the entire downstairs part for the foundation and we went to live upstairs.”.
Another challenge faced is school dropouts, which puts young people at risk of being recruited by gangs that operate in the sector or of being trapped in extreme poverty.
Violence in the family environment also affects dropping out of school. “We try to create a bond with them and a connection with the family environment. We also teach them to detect cases of violence, harassment, abuse or situations of insecurity in their classrooms and in their family environment.”
Panoramic of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Consent and contraceptives to the rhythm of the batucada
Santos emphasizes that it is precisely in the family environment where many unsafe situations arise, so it is crucial that girls learn to identify them, as well as harassment.
They have also helped them with contraceptive methods and taught them to prevent pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, and to inform their friends and colleagues.
“To these activities we have added the batucadas, which are with drum beats. We give the workshops, the talks and at the end we finish with the drumming. This musical activity has been a door to reach more teenagers here in the sector, since it attracts attention among young women,” says Santos.
The emblem of Afro-descendant populations, the drum has managed to reach children who are “in a more street situation” so that they seek better living conditions. “It has been harder trying to instruct older adolescents, but not impossible, since we have offered them this space of love and security”.
With all the young people, they carry out workshops on gender violence, where they talk to them about consent. “This is how we are generating new masculinities, where they can respect and also express what they think and what they feel. And that, if they have any situation, likewise, of violence, they can find that confidence to come and ask for help.”
Inés Santos, president of the Nia Kali foundation, during a workshop in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
United Nations support
Among the training that Santos received, there is a training of UN Women to create the Network of women peacebuilders, and Women who restorea UNODC violence prevention strategy funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund. Secretary General of the United Nations.
“In the workshops of Women who restorethey gave us the tools and techniques to intervene in a conflict. Sometimes, not knowing how to ask a question, instead of helping, complicates the situation.”
On the other hand, they learned to create safe spaces for women to support each other. “Before we did not have anyone to listen to us, but rather someone to judge us. We are teaching women to recognize generational patterns, to release them and receive support from others. Now women are more united, more connected.”
intense purpose
Looking to the future, Santos hopes that the girls and boys they are preparing today will be the community leaders who take up the baton tomorrow.
For now, finances the organization by making and selling turbans, scarves and necklaceswhich she considers “typical of us Afro women.” In addition, he brings snacks to the workshops and sells them after the session.
A purposeful and intense work, which illustrates the very name of the foundation. “Nia means for a purpose and Kali it means intense. We have an intense purpose to serve here in our community!”
Santos recalls that they chose the name because their daughter corresponded with friends in Africa who spoke Swahili. “They gave us a list of several names and from there we held an assembly with all the boys (…) We are like that, intense. When we say we are going to do an activitywe give, we have medical brigades, we do gastronomy courses, we help people in mobility situations and we help them so that they can have their documents, so that girls can enter to study; “That’s what we want.”
The choice of the logo was also thoughtful and they chose an ant because they saw themselves reflected in it. “They are always seen as weak little animals, but if we look closely, they are very organized; “They all work as a team and when a leaf is too big for them, they join together and take it.”
Inés Santos in front of the Nia Kali Foundation, which is also her home, on Isla Trinitaria, Guayaquil.
Union against violence
Precisely, JOIN is the motto of a United Nations campaign to prevent violence against women and girls that is promoted every year between November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Womenand on December 10, Human Rights Day.
As we begin this year’s 16 days of activism, UN Women and UNODC warned in a report that a total of 85,000 women and girls were intentionally killed in 2023. 60% of these homicides, 51,000, were committed by intimate partners or other family members.
America is one of the areas that recorded the highest rates of femicides related to the couple and family, only surpassed by Africa.
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