“Being a part of such a wonderful team and having others recognize my contributions was rewarding. Closing the Adolescent Maternity Program was very difficult, especially listening to the veteran volunteers that have dedicated years to working with the teen mothers.” Such were the feeling expressed by Lauren Antosz, US Student 2017 her work with adolescents came to an end in Chile.

Lauren, a Public Health academic from Notre Dame University, is a Fulbright US Student doing research and working in Chile with adolescent mothers since 2017 in Cerro Navia. Her work of months with teen mothers comes to an end and she presents a mixture of feelings: “As we transitioned the teen mothers out of the program, we left them with the contact information for many other resources available to them.” During the month of December, the directors at Fundacion Cerro Navia Joven made the decision to close the Adolescent Maternity Program. Therefore, my boss, Melody Cid and I, prepared closing activities for the adolescent mothers and their children. We decided to visit the girls just beginning to be associated with the program individually and have a Christmas party for those that had been participating with the program for at least a year. The celebration was wonderful, but at the end, when we shared the news with them, the mood changed to be a bit somber.

It was very difficult to tell the participants that the program would no longer be available, as for many of them it is a tremendous resource. I personally do not understand why during the last couple of months, my boss and I continued to visit new teen mothers and conducted orientation with them. The directors knew that the program would be closing, but failed to communicate that to us until much later in the year. This confusion causes instability in the lives of the girls, which the program effectively tries to combat.

It is truly upsetting that the pilot program of individual accompaniment with the adolescent mothers we were implementing throughout the year has been cut short. We have passed along the case files to the Foundation directors, as well as recommended certain cases to the Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Program. Besides the farewell brunch, there are no further actions that need to be taken with the program. Professor Donoso and I will be conducting site visits at the volunteer programs during the month of January. Updating the project supervisor information and also volunteer job descriptions which is very important to complete each year.