Healthy teenagers, healthy communities

Today we’ve been talking to Marta Pitarch, director and founder of Let’s Wo+Men, a non-profit association whose programmes help to prevent emotional disorders and risk-taking behaviour in young people and adults. At Withfor we are proud to collaborate with a project whose objective is to achieve healthy and socially intelligent communities through social transformation.

• What does Let’s Wo+men do?

We offer resources to meet these new social challenges and to help prevent emotional disorders and risk-taking behaviour.

In our programmes we work on the positive development of girls and women and the prevention of their specific risk factors such as low self-esteem, low self-confidence, image disorders and hypersexualisation, among others.

On the other hand, we also work on the positive development of boys and men and the prevention of their different risk factors such as inhibition to vulnerability, low frustration tolerance, fear of failure and aggression, among others.

• How did the idea of creating Let’s Wo+men arise?

I wanted to ease the journey for my children, providing them with the knowledge and tools that I didn’t have at their age and that led me on a very long journey before I found the answers.

We are born with instinct, connected to nature and the essence of ourselves. But the process of socialisation diverts us from this natural essence. It disconnects us from our emotions and forces us to show that we are winners, according to questionable criteria of success that are differentiated by gender. In education we continue to focus on achieving results, and the frustrating search of perfection and success. Neither the goal, nor the tools are appropriate.

• Who attends the programmes and what problems do they solve?

Our programmes are aimed at children, teenangers, and adults. And we get to them through schools, PTAs, sports clubs, public institutions, businesses and directly with the workshops we run in Withfor’s welcoming premises.

As a father or mother, if I have a child and I’m worried that he or she lives only in the moment, finds it hard to wait, is beginning to give compulsive or disruptive answers and can’t stand boredom, how can I help them? On the other hand, if I have a daughter and I’m concerned that she lives in a culture where the cult of the body is paramount, where with each day we have more girls addicted to social networks where they are continuously waiting for a like in exchange for emotional security, how can I help her?

In a hyper-stimulated society, hyper-stressed by the ever-increasing pressure to succeed, children grow up vulnerable to emotional problems, lacking affection and with low frustration tolerance.

We need fathers and mothers to be their guides, so that girls and women of the future can achieve an equality without having to pay the price of losing or devaluing their femininity along the way.

• What is the difference between Let’s Wo+men and other programmes? 

First of all, the research, as it is the key to everything we do. We are a research and information dissemination hub, investigating and measuring risk factors in the different behaviours of men and women. The Jaume I University provides the scientific validity for our tests.

Secondly, all our content is developed by psychologists and sexologists with clinical experience. This ensures that our programmes include genuine prevention of the problems observed by the team of psychologists in their practices.

Another important point is that we develop educational programmes with our own methodology and analyse their impact on participants.

And the fourth is that we consider individuals using a holistic approach.Taking into account their emotional, sensitive, physical, and relationship profiles we empower their innate masculine or feminine qualities in order to accomplish personal, academic and professional achievements.

• What is it that has surprised you most about the adolescents or parents that have participated?

Over 10,000 adolescents and 2000 adults have participated in our programmes, and I think that each of them has been affected in a different way. In general, it is as if they have had a blindfold removed and can see now clearly. Their critical sense grows stronger, and they begin to stop fighting to be something that they do not feel comfortable with. They start to get to know themselves, accept themselves and understand the rules that society has placed upon them and decide how to face them.  It is very satisfying when they say “why has no one explained this to us before”, “this education should be compulsory”, “I feel much better now”.

• How can you collaborate with Let’s Wo+men? 

On the letswomen.com website there is a section called “Implícate” and from there it is possible to send us a message with proposals for volunteering, mentoring or financial support… We always welcome collaborators like Withfor.

And for those mothers and fathers who have children between 10 and 18 years of age, or for those who feel that they are running on autopilot and want to live with more balance, the best would be to attend one of our programmes.  Because by attending, the individual acquires the necessary tools in order to grow and to advance…. And when the transformation takes place, it is contagious, it makes other people want to feel better.  One by one we can begin changing our surroundings. In the end, a better world is made with healthy, well-balanced people.

Dates of upcoming workshops at Withfor:

• 28 de septiembre (10h a 12.30h) – Building my daughter’s confidence I
• 15 October (19h to 21.30h) – Building my daughter’s confidence I
• 29 October (19h to 21.30h) – Building my son’s confidence I
• November (date and time to be determined) – Building my son’s confidence II
• November (date and time to be determined) – Building my son’s confidence II