My name is Laura Rivera, and I’m a Costa Rican woman with a background in psychology and over a decade of experience working with trauma survivors, marginalized families, and underserved populations in the United States. But this is not just my profession—it’s also my personal story.

After surviving my own journey through trauma, and spiritual restoration, I recently traveled to Costa Rica to heal, reset, and reconnect. What I found there changed my life—and gave me a calling far bigger than myself.

While walking the streets of Jacó, I witnessed hundreds of women and girls—some as young as 14—engaged in prostitution. In Costa Rica, sex work is legal, but the legality does not erase the pain, trauma, and exploitation that many of these women endure in silence. Many are single mothers. Most are survivors of abuse. All are human beings worthy of love, dignity, and a better life.

The heartbreaking reality?

There are no shelters, no trauma recovery programs, no holistic social services available to them.

No one in Costa Rican history has dared to serve these women on a community level. Until now.

This Is Bigger Than Me. This Is a Movement.This is about building something eternal. Something holy. Something that takes the broken pieces of our stories and uses them as bricks to build shelter, healing, and resurrection. For every woman who has been told she’s too far gone. For every little girl who was left unprotected. For every mother doing what she must to feed her children. This is for her. Because I was her. And by the grace of God, I am rising—so I can help her rise too.