Latin America - Caribbean Program
With the exception of Colombia, armed conflicts have come to an end in most of the region. However people are still experiencing other forms of violence such as economic, political and criminal. Violence against women in countries like Mexico and Guatemala are on the increase. Justice for victims of past and present human rights violations remains elusive throughout much of Latin America, and the legacy of structural adjustment programs and free trade has made the region the most unequal in the world. The Latin America and the Caribbean regional program addresses among other issues, good governance, health and gender equality, of which the latter is a cross-cutting theme in the region.
PWRDF Partnerships
- Brazil - partner profiles
- Cuba
- El Salvador - partner profiles
- Guatamala - partner profiles
- Mexico
- Nicaragua
- Peru
Latin America & The Caribbean: Our Approach
Despite declining and stagnating incomes in the region, hope and creativity continue to emerge in quite different ways that are counter to the formal political party structures of the 70s and 80s. People organize around common cultural and ethnic identities. Groups mobilize for basic human rights locally, nationally and internationally. Networks emerge out of specific and shared suffering. PWRDF works with partners engaged in such groups in Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Building a Moral Economy and Weaving a Culture of Peace with Justice
PWRDF's Latin America/Caribbean program emphasizes training for capacity building and advocacy, policy work, and the building and strengthening of networks and grassroots groups to affect social change and lobby for human, economic, social and cultural rights. It supports organizations and individual efforts aimed at strengthening democracy and reducing or eliminating inequalities based on race, social class and gender.
In Cuba: Food and environmental sustainability are a part of the sustainable program of the Cuban Council of Churches and of the food production at the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue in Cuba. Partners find themselves responding to ever-increasing demands for social education and training as part of expanding urban and rural social movements. The Latin America Press, a Latin America and Caribbean alternative newspaper, raises public awareness throughout the region by reaching out to the public, governments and other NGOs through regular bulletins, a Web site, and newsletter publications that address a variety of important issues. The Martin Luther King Center Leadership Program in Cuba and the Training School for Social Movement Educators (EQUIP) in Brazil, deliver training programs for youth in individual communities in various states.
Transparency with Governments
In their efforts to improve access to social services and lobby against corruption, several PWRDF partners have been successful in establishing a more democratic and transparent dialogue with municipal, regional and national government authorities. Christian Medical Action in Nicaragua has achieved credibility with both official authorities and local communities that allows it to play an active role on health matters, such as lobbying for people's access to essential medicines. The Brazilian government agency Fundaeo Palmares and the Regional Prosecutor's office recognized KOINONIA (Ecumenical Responses to Major Brazilian Social Issues) as a main actor in defence of Black Communities' Rights. KOINONIA also established a relationship with the International Labour Organization to work towards convincing the government to treat cases of rural workers, forced to grow drugs, as a situation of a most dangerous form of labour-- and not as a police matter.
South-South Networking
The strengthening of south-south networks plays a central role in most of our partners' work. For organizations like Madre Tierra and Ixmucane in Guatemala, organizations made up of women who reside in various spread-out communities, networking makes it possible to develop regional strategies. In Brazil, KOINONIA managed to bring together a mix of churches for cooperative discussions, including Pentecostal churches that traditionally have been very hostile to ecumenical cooperation and that still refuse to see HIV/AIDS as a very serious problem in Brazil. The development of the National Protestant Solidarity Network for HIV/AIDS work increases KOINONIA's capacity to influence churches and civil society at regional and national levels.
Gender and Development
Latin American and Caribbean women face great economic disadvantages. Regional networks, such as the Women's Pastoral
Training Program CEDEPCA, and the Continental Network of Indigenous women, as well as CIEDEG, IXMUCANE and Madre Tierra in Guatemala have been able to train more female leaders and open more spaces for women's participation in development. Their communities benefit as women take their places in public deliberation and decision-making. We continue to work with ecumenical colleagues in Canada, particularly KAIROS, to better strategize about, and coordinate work in Central America.
Partner Profile: ADES, El Salvador
In early 2004, former PWRDF Director Andrew Ignatieff visited long-term partner ADES in El Salvador. The community presented him with a painted wall hanging as a testimonial to their partnership with PWRDF over the years.
What is the background of the ADES project?
ADES emerged out of the massive violation of human rights, killing and displacement of large numbers of people, destruction of infrastructure,and the economic consequences of the protracted civil war in El Salvador. Members from ADES started working with the women of Santa Marta who were living with their children and some elders in a refugee camp across the border in Honduras.
Most of their husbands, brothers, and sons had been killed when the community was flattened in an army attack during the war. ADES facilitated their return to El Salvador and started work on meeting their immediate needs for housing, health care, and education for their children. Through the collaboration between ADES and the women of Santa Marta, the community has come back to life. A whole new generation is growing up in peacetime, attending school, planting and harvesting crops, setting up small businesses, and communicating with the outside world. The pioneering ADES work in Santa Marta has engaged the commitment of people from the surrounding region so that more than 40 communities are now participating in leadership development and capacity building training as well as social, cultural, and economic development projects. There is a strong emphasis on youth involvement in all ADES projects. This is true development from the ground up!
