|
|
|
1998
Grants
 Asociacion
Maya Achi
Para El Desarollo Comunitario
Guatemala: The Maya Achi Association for Community Development
was established in 1995 by a group of Maya Achi who were displaced by
war. They came together to promote programs and projects in production,
education, health, culture, and the economy among those people who were
displaced and exiled from their rural communities to the capital city
due to Guatemala's 36-year war. The primary objective of the organization
is to help those Maya who have been affected by war to re-establish
social ties and solidarity in order to contribute to the development
of their mental well-being.
 The
Association seeks to discover the positive or negative influences of
displacement on the mental well-being of the displaced population and,
through means of participatory workshops, develop a document that will
serve as a testimonial to (1) the conditions of poverty, war, and exile
in which the displaced live and (2) the role these conditions play in
their mental health. The Association's participatory analysis of the
effects of displacement on the Maya Achi population will contribute
to their identification of ways to maintain the population's mental
well-being and harmony as individuals, as a community, and in relationship
with mother nature. This grant from the Martín-Baró Fund will support
their participatory workshops and the development of this document.
Centro de Atencion
Integral en Poblaciones en Riesgo
Huancavelica, Peru: The Center for Integrated Care of At-risk Populations
– CAIPRI KAUSAY – was established due to the extreme poverty that exists
in Huancavelica, Peru. Thirty-eight percent of the population is illiterate
and 80% of the children suffer from malnutrition. There are high rates
of crime and of alcoholism, particularly among men and women who are
laborers. The main goals of the Center are to establish preventative
programs to maintain the overall health of those groups living in extreme
poverty. They seek to contribute to the improvement of the integral
health of the whole population of Huancavelica through health awareness
programs in high risk groups living in the city. One strategy is to
improve and strengthen the presence of social organizations meant to
serve and protect the population by channeling support to people who
have been victims of abuse, domestic violence, abandonment, displacement
or other violations of human rights. A grant from the Martín-Baró Fund
will support several leadership training workshops for staff who work
in a range of projects developed to enhance overall health among these
populations, including video forums, radio shows, the development of
popular education pamphlets and magazines, educational courses, and
community-based workshops.
Children's
Rehabilitation Center
Quezon City, Philippines: In recent years, economic development
activities in the Philippines have included the entry of multinational
corporations, supported by state sponsored military and paramilitary
activity. Increased military operations in the name of economic development
have involved extensive forced dislocation of Filipino families from
their homes and towns as well as violent property demolitions, deployment
of troops to monitor the population, and threatening displays of power
by paramilitary groups. The Children's Rehabilitation Center is especially
concerned with the effects of these events on Filipino children's physical
and psychological health.
With
this grant, the Center will engage in fact-finding missions in 6 communities
affected by militarization and demolitions with the aim of documenting
human rights violations, especially against children. The Center also
plans to deliver psychosocial services to affected children, helping
children process their experiences and facilitating family communication
and education about the effects of the military presence and violence.
Finally, the Center plans to use the data it gathers to advocate against
state sponsored violence in the countryside. Visit
the CRC's Website.
La
Comunidad Campesina
de San Francisco de Asis de Salas
Chicloyo, Peru: The Peasant Community of San Francisco of Asis
of Salas is a community organization located on the coast of Northern
Peru, 860km from Lima, the capital. The group strives to establish means
for economic community development, using as its base the family unit
and, within this base, the woman laborer. The project hopes to strengthen
leadership positions in the community within this context. Participants
include inhabitants of Salas who earn below poverty level wages, groups
of mothers in each sector, as well as women who support agriculture,
community leaders, and youth. Current specific objectives of the project
are: (1) to reinforce leadership roles in human rights, conflict mediation,
community organization, and education; (2) to consolidate the organizational
capacity of the community in response to its growing needs (due to natural
disasters, reconstruction of productive means, and reconstruction of
housing); (3) to come up with solutions to deal with the devastation
caused by external forces; (4) to improve the participation of women,
adolescents, and children in the decision making process; and, (5) to
come up with alternative methods to market products produced in the
community. This year's grant from the Martín-Baró Fund will support
advanced leadership training workshops and ongoing supervision of existing
projects.
Cúnamh
Derry, Northern Ireland: The Cúnamh project was developed in
response to conditions of war and militarization in a community with
high rates of unemployment, poverty, and social deprivation. This community-led
project offers support services to relatives of those killed in Derry
in January, 1972, a day now known as "Bloody Sunday." The project also
offers support to families of current political prisoners. Support services
offered include counseling in small support groups, as well as a home
visit service. Ultimately, participants can be trained in group facilitation,
with the goal of establishing more issue-focused support groups and
a community-led support system.
It
is the hope of the project that by providing a supportive and safe environment
in which to explore and understand feelings related to past traumatic
experiences, participants will experience increased self-esteem and
confidence, and will be better able to take this type of service to
other communities. This grant from the Martín-Baró Fund will help establish
childcare for the mostly female participants who would otherwise be
unable to participate in the groups. Childcare for this population is
difficult to access due to the poverty and social isolation that most
of these women experience as they raise their families alone.
Equipo
de Estudios
Comunitarios y Accion Psicosocial
Guatemala City, Guatemala: The Community Studies and Psychological
Action Team (ECAP) was established in 1994 to respond to the effects
of 36 years of war and government-sponsored violence in Guatemala. In
many rural areas, people witnessed the torture and assassination of
relatives and neighbors, and indigenous populations experienced attacks
on their cultures and cultural identity. In response to these events,
ECAP aims to work toward psychological reparation of individuals and
of communities, and to re-establish a sense of community identity as
a part of the recovery process.
ECAP
works primarily with the indigenous Achi community, and with orphans
and widows who have lost their families due to political violence. The
group has been involved in investigations to identify pressing mental
health issues in the community. Currently, the team is interested in
promoting human rights and mental health through radio programs which
will address psychological and social problems of the community, and
through the development of educational materials directed toward the
most affected groups as well as toward the community in general. A second
goal is to provide training workshops for mental health workers in order
to allow them to work more effectively and to bring this work to other
areas of the country. This grant will fund the development of educational
materials and training programs which address the psychological and
social problems of communities affected by long-term political violence.
Some additional information about ECAP is available at the website of
the International
Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.
Hopi
Foundation
Arizona, United States: The Hopi Foundation is a group dedicated
to the preservation of Hopi and other indigenous peoples' traditional
ways of life, while meeting the challenges of a modern era. The Foundation
has initiated a project which works with indigenous Central American
refugees now living in Arizona who have survived conditions of violence
and oppression in their home countries. Its aims are to work with at-risk
communities who have been traumatized by state-sponsored violence in
order to prevent further violence and to promote peaceful, stable communities.
Having
completed a needs-assessment, the program will use this grant to provide
services such as mentor programs and after-school programs for youth,
cultural activities, health care including traditional healing, the
promotion of training and employment opportunities, and family interventions
to promote healing from trauma by torture, dislocation, or the disappearance
of loved ones.
Mujeres
en Apoyo Para
La Salud Mental Comunitaria
Ayutuxtepeque, San Salvador, El Salvador: Women in Support of
Community Mental Health (MUSAMECO) was established in El Salvador to
help women and children deal with the problems of living in a male dominated
society which overburdens families, a society plagued by war and earthquakes,
a rising economic crisis, and systematic attempts to displace marginal
urban communities from their land. Their main objective is to develop
a model of community mental health support groups, based on the realities
of the women's and children's lives in El Salvador, in order to strengthen
the mental health of the participating women and children, their families,
and the communities in which they live.
They
seek to enhance women's leadership skills so that, as mental health
promoters in their local groups, they can support participants' self-education
regarding concepts related to mental health in their communities and
to their own integral development as human beings. This year's grant
will support their effort to form a commission of women from the different
communities served by their program who will be the maximum authority
of MUSAMECO in defining their course and their members towards the future.
Programa
Construccion De Paz 'Yek Ineme'
San Salvador, El Salvador: The Peace Building Program 'Yek Ineme'
was established to work among Salvadoreños living in a violent and impoverished
society torn by war and neoliberalism. Their objectives are to strengthen
the attitudes and abilities of their members so that they can come up
with the tools necessary to develop values that will help them make
conscientious and positive decisions in contexts of persistent violence
and poverty. They seek to achieve this goal through (1) the design and
development of methodologies that will help participants use their experiences
to strengthen community-level efforts, and (2) the strengthening of
a culture of peace, creating spaces where people can analyze their different
problems and transform them into opportunities for growth.
The
project is aimed at different areas, including rural communities in
Chalatenango & Morazan, a marginal urban community on the periphery
of San Salvador, and two youth groups that are at risk in an urban zone
of San Salvador. Participants include adult women, young men and women
of both Catholic and Christian faith, and people of indigenous roots.
All participants live below the poverty level and have scarce resources.
A
grant from the Martín-Baró Fund will enable the group to systematize
findings from earlier workshops designed to open channels of communication
between different, sometimes conflicting, groups towards developing
a sense of trust and community between individuals, inculcating positive
values, and thereby enhancing mental health. These findings will be
summarized in popular education pamphlets that will be used by participants
in facilitating other workshops in their local communities.
Quebec
Committee for the Recognition of the
Rights of Haitian Workers in the Dominican Republic
Quebec, Canada: The Quebec Committee for the Recognition of the
Rights of Haitian Workers in the Dominican Republic was founded in 1987
to work for social and political change in order to improve the quality
of life and defend the human rights of Haitian workers in the Dominican
Republic. Haitian workers have worked on sugar plantations in the Dominican
Republic since the 1930's, in government-sanctioned slave-like labor
conditions. The workers, many of whom have been abducted from Haiti
to work as cane cutters, do not have legal status in the Dominican Republic,
and are subjected to arbitrary detention, the confiscation of property,
and restriction of free movement.
The
Committee has organized training programs for the unionization of sugar
cane cutters, developed a sewing cooperative for women to improve economic
conditions and community solidarity, and sponsored public awareness
campaigns. This grant from the Martín-Baró Fund will allow the organization
to submit a report solicited by the Inter-American Commission of Human
Rights which will document the human rights violations and slave-like
working conditions which profoundly impact the mental health of this
group, and will outline proposals for ways to address this situation.
Slum
Development Society
Chennai, India: The Slum Development Society serves members of
the lowest caste in India, the dalits and fishermen, who suffer from
extreme poverty and lack of education. The dalits and fishermen do not
at present have any community organization, collective bargaining power,
or active political presence. This project's goal is to redress this
situation, providing education and training to members of this lowest
caste through workshops on human rights, legal rights, and community
action. The group will target youth, some of whom are school drop-outs,
with a Liberation-Leadership Camp, intended to educate and train youth,
who will then bring knowledge and community organizing skills back to
their communities.
The
project also plans to provide tutoring and support to students. It further
aims to offer job-oriented skills training in order to help this population
overcome economic oppression and poverty, while working to raise consciousness
about the injustice of current social conditions. This grant will fund
programs aimed at organizing this community to increase their political
knowledge and collective power as well as their literacy and job skills.
Women's
Development Center
Bohol, Philippines: The Women's Development Center was established
to support women's participation in economic, social, and political
development; to instill consciousness and motivation in rural populations
of women and children to achieve sociocultural change; and to establish
links with other women's organizations. This center was developed in
the context of government-led economic oppression of small businesses
and farmers in the Philippines.
Resistance
to these policies has met with government militarization and armed violence,
bombings, and forced evacuations, especially in the countryside. Many
children have been orphaned and dislocated due to this government-sponsored
violence. The current grant will fund a rehabilitation program for these
orphans. The program will consist of the identification of the specific
needs of 25 orphans, funding for their continued schooling, individual
and group counseling, and skills training in cooking, handicrafts, first
aid, and survival skills, among others. The project will also provide
education and support to foster families.
Return
to Top
English
to Spanish translations
courtesy
of Melisa Flores
©
2007, Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health & Human Rights
|
