Elizabeth

Elizabeth is 11 and as a girl growing up in El Salvador, she’s experienced the challenges faced by many girls, and children in general, in this small Central American country. Her community is located on a strip of land between two gang territories meaning that there are frequently gun fights and turf wars as the two groups battle, making it an extremely high risk place for children to grow up.

For the last five years however, she’s been attending project activities which are run by Toybox’s partner, Viva. Recently, she’s been learning about her rights, not only as a child, but also as a girl. Here she shares a little more about her life.

“I live with my parents and my brother in San Salvador, although I tend to sleep at my grandparents’ house, which isn’t far away. I’ve been attending Viva’s activities since I was about 6 years old, and I go almost every day because I want to know everything about the things we’re learning!"

“Sometimes I work to help my parents at their market stall where they sell seeds – although now I do that less often. I also used to take plates of food around to different people too, to help earn money. My dad drinks a lot though which is why I tend to sleep at my grandparents’ house. I also hide some of my favourite things there so he can’t sell them to buy alcohol.” Elizabeth

"With my parents working and out a lot, when I’m at the house, I’m alone most of the time. I cook my own food, like rice, eggs and sausages. Recently, I’ve been spending that time on the computer that I was given by the government, and I've started writing my own book about a series that I really love. I like anime and sometimes I can’t sleep – once it took until 5am until I slept!

I like my community because everyone knows each other which makes it less dangerous. You just have to be careful when you go into the park because there’s a deep crack forming down it. They scare me and that’s why I don’t want to go to school – it’s right next to a ravine too and I’m scared that if there’s an earthquake or tremor, the school will fall in when we’re all there. There have been some new gangs appearing in the community too who shoot at each other a lot – in November it was so bad that the police had to come. Now it feels a bit safer though."

“At the project, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned how to express myself and interview people – I love asking questions and hearing what people have to say. That’s why I loved it when we went to the radio studio. We learned more about how to speak and use the microphone.” Elizabeth

"Learning about my rights has been the most important thing – before, I didn’t know anything about this. Now I know that I have the right to be respected by people and for my opinions to be listened to. For girls, we must have the same rights as boys because at the end of the day, we’re all human beings who deserve the same levels of respect.

In my community, there are way more boys than girls. For example, there’s just me and three other young girls who live near me. People pay more attention to the boys and give them what they want. I have friends who are boys though and we’ve all learned about children’s and girls’ rights – we all know now that adults shouldn’t touch us or take us places on our own. Last year, I was involved in a project where we created a Child Protection handbook to share with other children, which I loved. It was good to share my knowledge with other children so they can know their rights like I do.”