ABSTRACT
The chapter describes the characteristics of an intervention developed in Costa Rica. Important segments of young women in poor populations are excluded from the benefits of development and live trapped in a situation of lack of support, discrimination, stigmatization, and invisibility in programs and policies. The Sunflowers Program (Programa Girasoles in Spanish) is a comprehensive initiative that seeks to combat violence and social exclusion of adolescents and young women in conditions of vulnerability, between the ages of 15 and 21, who are not working or studying. The theory of change underlying the program emphasizes subjective transformation (which includes gender position, aspects of identity, personal interests, prevention of violence, and experience of belonging) among marginal urban young women. The program was carried out between 2016 and 2018 in association with the Program of Civic Centers for Peace of the Vice Ministry of Peace. The results were very successful. Currently the model is in the process of being redesigned to repeat the intervention with emphasis on its rigorous evaluation for its replication and multiplication.
