Empower women. Support Matria. image

Empower women. Support Matria.

Every time a woman call for help and we answer, we save a live. Every time we speak up for women's rights, we also save lives.

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Love. Hope. Solidarity. CHANGE.

We save lives. We empower. We educate. We support relevant research. We aim for a Puerto Rico of equity.

Over the past 20 years, Matria has saved the lives of thousands of women throughout Puerto Rico. Our mission is to advance equity, peace, and the human development of the women of our country through economic development, housing, and empowerment services. That mission also embraces and includes people from LGBT communities and victims of natural disasters.

Our 24/7 Helpline is an escape door for women in situations of gender-based violence. Our phone number allows them to obtain emergency shelter services, housing, advocacy, legal representation, escape plans, safety plans, and a network of organizations ready to serve their needs. Our number has saved the lives of more than 5,500 women in the past three years and will surely save many more in the years to come.

Gaia, our housing program has offered transitional and permanent housing to more than 650 women and their families in the past 20 years. We work to guarantee a space for healing and recovery and we have seen the results: empowered women, happy children, and the capacity to move from fear and despair to happiness.

La Ruta de las Mujeres (The Women's Route) completes our system of services and advocacy. Through this program, we work with advocacy strategies that encourage the development of public policies focused on the needs and human rights of women and LGBT people. We monitor government actions to detect opportunities and threats and communicate our findings to allied organizations that work on these issues. Also from La Ruta, we work on the political empowerment of women in Puerto Rico through regional assemblies, in-person workshops, and digital content.

In 2017, Hurricane Maria forced us to work on disaster response and recovery issues. From there our Casa Solidaria Matria (Matria Solidarity House) project was born in the mountains of Miraflores community in Orocovis. Today, we can proudly say that we have become the mentors of a new community organization created by the people of Miraflores that will follow up on the work that we began in 2017 but from its knowledge and in full autonomy.

Finally, we want to talk to you about our pro-bono legal representation program and our research work. Both facets of our work were born in 2019.
Our pro-bono program complements the services of our Help Line and is also available to other women and LGBT people with limited resources who need them in cases related to or derived from situations of gender violence.
Our research area is developed together with allied organizations. Our report on femicides developed by Kilómetro Cero in 2019 is still an important reference when discussing the issue in Puerto Rico.
We know that sexist violence directed towards women has its roots in the deep inequalities they experience. Therefore, our motto is: "Service without advocacy falls short." Believing in equity as an antidote to violence and poverty among women forces us to go beyond direct service and work in solidarity to change the structures that make them vulnerable.