“I was 15 years old the first time my 27-year-old cousin Eduardo molested me. I was petrified, totally numb. I couldn’t react. I didn’t understand what was going on. After that, he raped me daily for eight months and brainwashed me into not telling anyone. He knew exactly how to control and manipulate me into staying silent, threatening to rape my little sisters and telling me it would destroy my parents if they knew what was happening.

I developed eating disorders and passed the days crying alone in my room. I attempted suicide. My parents knew something was wrong, but never suspected sexual violence. They took me to a special psychology center and that is where I disclosed what had been happening.

My parents and siblings were devastated. My parents were dismayed that they hadn’t realized what was happening right in front of them and grieved that they hadn’t been able to protect their daughter. After I broke the silence, a whole new world of self-blame opened up, which there shouldn’t have been. My parents did the best they could. None of this was our fault, but the guilt persisted.

Because I was one of the first adolescents to take a rape case to trial in Bolivia, we faced a lot of resistance. In Bolivia, victims of sexual violence are often blamed, and it is assumed that they had done something to deserve it. My parents begged dozens of lawyers to represent me and were repeatedly told, “I won’t shame my name defending a rape victim.” People said my case was a lost cause.

The judges didn’t want to take my case either, which was shuffled from court to court over 20 times. That gave us great insight into how rape victims were and still are seen in Bolivia – as totally worthless.”

Together with her husband Parker Palmer, himself a sex abused child, Brisa founded A Breeze of Hope. Since its founding in 2004, A Breeze of Hope has impacted the lives of more than 1,800 child survivors and their supportive family members. They have educated and trained over 120,000 people in sexual violence prevention and over 150,000 in Early Childhood Development.

What We Do

Direct services and prevention of sexual violence

Sexual violence against children is a global pandemic and is the product of complex relations among social, community, relational, and individual factors.

Comprehensive Childhood Development

If we want to create a world of peace, justice, and loving kindness, we must focus our efforts on children as the core of humanity and the most important members of society.

Why we chose to work in Bolivia

Bolivia has the highest rates of sexual violence against women and children in all of Latin America, but one of the lowest rates of reporting to officials. 70% of all Bolivian women suffer the horrors of sexual violence (more than half when they were children). 1 in every 3 girls and 1 in every 5 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18.