CLEM

CLEM is an acronym from the Spanish “Comunidad de Libertad y Esperanza de la Mujer” meaning Community of Freedom and Hope for Women.

It is the name of an ecumenical group of disadvantaged women, of all faiths and none, who live in Montero, a town of 90,000 people in the tropical plains of Bolivia. CLEM was founded in 1995 by eight Methodist women with one aim – to change and transform their everyday lives. In 1995 a Methodist NETWORK grant enabled the women to set up a “Women’s space” which they maintained by running a photocopying service for the local Methodist school and small businesses in the town. In 1997 the group had grown to 15 women and started a sewing service making simple shoulder bags from Bolivian cloth in order to raise funds to build a Medical Center that would prioritize the health of women. Today, CLEM is a legally registered Bolivian charity with a membership of 30 poor women. It runs a variety of vocational meetings, has purchased the CLEM House and has finished building the CLEM Medical Center for women and the family to provide much needed health care in the seven most disadvantaged neighborhoods of Montero. While maintaining the running of the CLEM Medical Center, the women are now seeking funds:

1. to extend the CLEM “House” to accommodate their office, sewing and knitting workshops, vocational courses, and computer training;

2. to set up an additional office for the Defence and Protection of Women; and

3. to provide shelter for women and girls escaping from violence in the home.

CLEM (in Bolivia) has the unwielding support of Friends of CLEM in the United Kingdom.

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Women from CLEM making goods from aguayos for raising funds in the UK.

Pastor Maggie Stringer and Pastor David, from the Methodist Church of England