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1999
Grants
Centro De Estudios y Educacion Indigena
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala: Armed conflict and violence have created
an atmosphere of fear and silence within indigenous and other marginal
communities of Guatemala. Since 1980, this violence has claimed the
lives of over 150,000 people including 50,000 children, over 100,000
refugees, and a million displaced people. Indigenous groups in particular
have experienced massacres of entire communities. The signing of the
peace agreement in 1996 created a space for the demand for human rights.
Yet human rights violations continue today in Guatemala, and the legal,
economic, and judicial bases which would realize the peace agreements
have not yet been ratified. The economic situation for poor communities
has worsened, as poverty and unequal distribution of wealth have increased.
The number of indigenous unemployed and homeless children has increased
as well.
The
Center for Indigenous Studies and Education (CEEI) works towards awareness
for the strengthening of society. Its objectives are to educate and
inform the younger generations about the Informe de la Comision de Esclarecimiento
Historico Memoria del Silencio; and to encourage civilian participation
through the dissemination of information in the press. The project will
target younger indigenous people who do not know their history, in order
for them to construct a better future. CEEI aims to create and empower
indigenous men and women leaders to contribute to the restructuring
of society, including the defense and realization of human rights within
the indigenous communities; and to strengthen community organizations
in the creation of project proposals which aim to improve the quality
of life within these indigenous communities. Recent work of the CEEI
has been with women around issues of gender, mental health, identity,
and human rights, among others. Other work has been with organized groups
within communities around education and alternative communication in
the defense of human rights of men, women and children.
Children's
Rehabilitation Center
Quezon City, Philippines: In recent years, increasing military
and paramilitary activity has accompanied government-sponsored economic
development projects in the Philippines. These military operations have
involved extensive forced dislocations of 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 concerned with the effects
of militarization and displacement on Filipino children's physical and
psychological health.
With
last year's grant from the Martin Baro Fund, the Center engaged in fact-finding
missions in six communities affected by militarization and demolitions,
and documented human rights violations, especially against children.
The Center also provided psychosocial services to affected children,
helping children process their experiences and facilitating family communication
and education about the effects of military presence and violence.
With
this year’s grant, the CRC intends to continue work with this population
of children, helping them move from expression and processing of distress
towards cognitive mastery and active participation in advocating for
human rights. A group of children at the Center have formed a collective
which has performed skits, painted murals, and published a magazine
that addressed human rights issues and history. This grant will enable
them to participate in workshops and training on children's rights issues.
They will then plan and implement activities intended to reach out to
and raise awareness among other children in the urban poor community.
Grant money will also be used to make a major presentation for Human
Rights Day in December, and to publish a second issue of their magazine.
Visit the
CRC's website.
Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitana
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Many Haitians, fleeing poverty
in their own country, have migrated to the Dominican Republic in search
of work on sugar plantations there. However, what they find is seasonal
work for barely subsistence wages, performed under armed guard. Workers
are refused documentation as legal immigrants, which leaves them without
rights, and results in their seasonal deportation when the cane-cutting
season is over. Families are often split apart by "on-the-spot" deportations.
Moreover, this population has significant medical concerns and virtually
no access to medical care or mental health services.
MUDHA
has opened two medical clinics in recent years, which provide vaccinations
and medication distribution. This grant will fund increases in services
at these clinics, including greater availability of health care professionals
(who now are only in the clinics once a week), more medicine, and medical
screenings for common medical problems and epidemics. Three more clinics
are also slated to be introduced on the plantations. The clinics will
offer health care as well as workshops on common health concerns and
traditional herbal medicines, and raise awareness in the community about
the conditions under which Haitian workers are living. MUDHA will also
offer cultural workshops aimed at increasing the self-esteem and sense
of positive identity of Haitian workers. Counseling will be available
to address the mental health needs of the community. The underlying
goal of this work is to empower these workers to more effectively advocate
for their rights by alleviating some of the mental stress and health
concerns that so negatively impact their lives.
Overseas Filipino Workers
Resource & Service Center Cotabato City, Philippines
Due to government economic policies that have widened the gap between
rich and poor, as well as years of oppressive government in the Philippines,
many Filipinos have been compelled to seek work outside the country.
Most of those who work overseas are women, and most take domestic help
positions in the Middle East. Recently, there has been increasing awareness
and documentation of physical, mental, and sexual abuse of Filipinos
working abroad by their employers. Such abuses appear to be widespread.
A number of women have returned to their local fishing villages to escape
abusive situations, despite the lack of jobs available at home.
These
women are the target of outreach services by the Overseas Filipino Workers
Resource and Service Center. The goal of the Center is to promote and
protect the rights and welfare of overseas contract workers and their
families through legal assistance, counseling, and education about their
rights. The organization has been active for two years in local villages,
offering training workshops and education about employee and human rights,
and providing legal assistance to returnees who were victimized by their
employers overseas. This grant will also fund psychosocial counseling
to help returning workers process and cope with the abuses they have
experienced. Ultimately, it is hoped that through counseling, education,
and advocacy, these workers will become active in continuing efforts
to assert their human and economic rights.
Sezim NGO
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan: The Republic of Kyrgyzstan gained its independence
from the USSR in 1991, and is currently in transition toward democracy.
However, because of high unemployment and pervasive poverty, people
are feeling increasingly frustrated, helpless and hopeless. Alcoholism
has increased, as have domestic conflicts involving violence against
women. Domestic violence is culturally accepted in Kyrgyzstan, and victims
have found that the justice system is at best unresponsive to their
complaints. Most women do not report their abuse to the authorities
because the local police and military are reported to be corrupt and
to perpetrate violence themselves. Moreover, as a reported 80% of women
in the Republic are unemployed, they do not have the financial freedom
to leave abusive domestic situations.
With
this grant, Sezim will be able to provide group therapy, education,
and legal advice to lower class women exposed to violence. Group therapy
will be offered as a place to express feelings, problem-solve, build
self-esteem and self-reliance, and address harmful social and gender
stereotypes. Discussion groups will meet regularly to talk about violence
against women as a social problem and encourage movement toward social
change. These programs seek to create improved mental health, greater
education about human rights, and new skills for responding to threatening
situations in an environment that offers resources and support to victims
of violence.
Solidarite des Femmes de Fizi pour le Bien-Etre Familial
Kigoma, Tanzania
Tanzania, 25 years after achieving independence, is relatively stable
politically. However, ethnic conflicts are still evident, and the country
borders on other countries that have had violent political and ethnic
conflicts in the last several years. In the territory targeted by this
project, violence against women, which appears to be related to ethnic
conflicts in the region, has become a huge problem. Women are often
raped and sexually abused by local armed forces, and forced prostitution
has also been recognized as a problem. Furthermore, some women report
that they are afraid to testify against their attackers and consider
the sexual violence they have experienced a form of deliberate government
intimidation. Many rape victims are murdered or commit suicide; others
feel silenced and without the economic or social power to fight back
in a male-dominated society.
SOFIBEF
will create community awareness about violence against women and offer
legal and political advocacy for women survivors. With this grant, the
group will implement a community-based program, creating five groups
of women activists in five villages. These local women will be trained
to provide legal advocacy, and will organize community outreach to educate
both men and women about violence against women and women's rights.
This campaign will also involve the distribution of leaflets and videos
as educational tools. It is hoped that this campaign for awareness will
result in a more organized struggle for change in the treatment of women
on both personal and political levels. Visit
the SOFIBEF website.
Universidad Centroamericana
"Jose Simeon Canas" San Salvador, El Salvador
In 1989, social psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró was assassinated
on the campus of UCA along with five other Jesuits, among them the president
of the University, Ignacio Ellacuria. The assassination of Martín-Baró,
at the hands of troops known to be trained at the School of the Americas
in the USA, was in the context of El Salvador's ongoing civil war and
ongoing political repression that resulted in extreme violations of
human rights there. The Psychology Department of the UCA has sought
to continue Martín-Baró’s work. A central component to this effort is
spreading his ideas about psychology and his proposal that psychology
be more responsive to the lives of the poor and marginalized groups
in Latin America. One concrete strategy for realizing this goal is The
International Congress on the Social Psychology of Liberation, first
held in 1999 in Mexico City. The International Congress is an opportunity
for students and teachers striving to conduct research and teach psychology
from a liberationist perspective to gather and present their work. The
Second Congress will take place in San Salvador immediately prior to
the 10th anniversary celebration of the assassination of Ignacio and
his colleagues, their housekeeper and her daughter. This grant will
support student attendance at the Congress. Visit
the University's website.
Return
to Top
English
to Spanish translations
courtesy
of Melisa Flores
©
2007, Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health & Human Rights
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