The Martín-Baró
Fund's Annual
Fundraiser

    

 

Fall Event, 2004
 "Human Rights in an Era of Terrorism:
El Salvador Remembered"

15th Anniversary Commemoration
of the assassination of Father
Ignacio Martín-Baró

Featured Speakers:
Robert White, Former
Ambassador to El Salvador

Maria Elena Letona,
President, Centro
Presente

Sunday Afternoon
November 14, 2004
4:30 PM

First Church in Cambridge
11 Garden Street
directions & map

Robert White, United States ambassador to El Salvador from March, 1980 until March, 1981, will be the featured speaker at the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund's annual Commemorative Event at the First Church in Harvard Square, Cambridge, at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 14. The event, which is open to the public, will mark the fifteenth anniversary of the assassination in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her child in their country's bloody and protracted civil war.
One of those Jesuits, Ignacio Martín-Baró - "Father Nacho" as he was known to his colleagues and students - was an internationally known social psychologist and a respected leader of the "liberation psychology" movement. The Martín-Baró Fund was established in his honor nearly fifteen years ago by friends and colleagues at Boston College and in the San Francisco area. The Fund supports progressive grassroots groups throughout the world that foster psychological wellbeing, social consciousness, and active resistance in communities affected by institutional and state-sponsored violence, injustice and economic oppression. Over the past 15 years the Fund has provided more than $600,000 in 116 grants to non-governmental organizations in 26 countries, including Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Peru, South Africa, the Philippines, and Thailand.
"When we began the Fund fifteen years ago our focus was on the effects of state-sponsored violence including massacres, torture and civil war," explained Dr. M. Brinton Lykes, Professor of Community/Social Psychology at Boston College. "Today, however, we are also receiving proposals from groups struggling with economic violence caused by structural oppression and by global policies and practices that favor the interests of the U.S. and other developed countries. In reviewing proposals, we give particular attention to grassroots organizations in areas that are affected in some way by U.S. foreign and economic policies and that are seeking to address the effects of those policies through resistance and social change."
Ambassador White, a former native of Melrose, is currently the President of the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, where he has published numerous studies of U.S. policy toward Latin America, and led an ongoing effort to reform U.S. intelligence agencies. His twenty-five-year Foreign Service career included posts as Latin American Director of the Peace Corps, deputy permanent representative to the Organization of American States, and Ambassador to both Paraguay and El Salvador.
Also speaking will be Elena Letona, Executive Director of Centro Presente, a community-based organization dedicated to the self-determination of the Latino immigrant community of Massachusetts. Centro Presente was established in 1981 to support Salvadoran and other Central American refugees. It has played a central role in providing access to legal assistance and human services within these communities.

Please feel free to contact us if you
have any questions about this event.

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English to Spanish translations
courtesy of Melisa Flores

© 2007, Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health & Human Rights