NWC Donates House Appliances to Safe Houses Around the Country

The National Women’s Commission handed over a number of household appliances to three safe houses. Mary Open Doors, Haven House and House of Dorca received items such as refrigerators, water dispensers, and small appliances like cake mixers and waffle makers. The NWC’s Program Officer, Eleanor Murrillo, explains that this is one of the services they provide to safe houses so they can carry out their work in creating a safe space for persons who have been subjected to a form of gender-based violence.

Eleanor Murrillo, Program Officer, National Women’s Commission: “We provide household items for the safe houses to ensure that the families who go to those houses that they’re comfortable and that they have the amenities. You know they’re already going through a traumatic experience and so on so we continue to enhance and to uplift the safe houses. They got refrigerators, stoves, television sets,  kitchen appliances and even a lawn mower to help with the amenities in their yard spaces so they got a lot of items that can really help them, fans and so on.”

President of Mary Open Doors, Shashira Galves, says that the living area is currently undergoing renovation to be more homelike. And, they are still trying to rebuild the office space that was destroyed in a fire last year. She adds that they are working on implementing capacity-building courses, such as cake baking, so the women at the shelter can be self-sufficient when they leave.

Sashira Galvez, President, Mary Open Doors: “We are currently in the process of completely refurbishing the shelter itself to make it a little bit more  homey and the donation given to us today is very beneficial so we’re absolutely grateful for it. It was actually the office that got burnt down, our safe house is still functioning. We lost everything and quite a bit of donations as well. We received a stove today and a stove was in that fire that we ended up losing and we’re still trying to reestablish the office. Our goal is to make them feel safe and comfortable and having appliances like these allows us to really bring that comfort because it is their home for the time being and one of the things that I’d actually like to point out is that we’re getting a cake mixer and one of the goals that we’re trying to do for this year is actually to try to incorporate a lot of workshops to teach them how to do stuff to be able to get on their feet.”