Solidarity Projects

CAMINOS 

Project Summary

DJPC’s Colorado/Maya Accompaniment Project of the Sierra (CAMINOS) sponsors human rights observers who accompany witnesses seeking justice in legal cases against former military dictators in Guatemala.  Promesa, a program of CAMINOS, is a partnership that seeks to improve overall health and primary care delivery for the isolated rural village of Tesorito, Guatemala, by supporting the community’s own existing health structures, and the local heath workers who serve as volunteers. The CAMINOS Steering Committee oversees these efforts.

 Background

Guatemala’s 36-year civil war led to the death and disappearance of more than 200,000 Guatemalan civilians and created hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced people, most of whom were indigenous Maya. CAMINOS was created in 1996 to respond to a request for human rights observers or accompaniers by the “Communities of Population in Resistance of the Sierra” (CPR-Sierra). The people of the CPR-Sierra are Ixil and K’iche’ Mayas who survived the Guatemalan Army’s “scorched earth campaign” of the 1980s and fled to remote forests and mountains. For 15 years they struggled to survive; many died from army attacks, illness, hunger and exposure. At the end of the war, with the help of international support and human rights accompaniers, the CPRSierra families came out of hiding to establish new communities across the country. An international presence in Guatemala has become even more important since 2000 as courageous survivors brought legal cases to a Guatemalan court. They are charging former military dictators with genocide against the indigenous population.

The witnesses in these cases have formed the Association for Justice and Reconciliation and have requested international accompaniment. CAMINOS has shifted its focus to  accompaniment for these witnesses as long as it is necessary. Guatemalans still face the same issues today that were at the root of the armed conflict — widespread poverty, underdevelopment in rural areas, and continued discrimination against the indigenous majority. Justice for victims of human rights abuses committed during the civil war continues to be compromised largely because of a culture of repression and violence that is perpetuated by those in power. Since January 2000, threats, assaults and assassinations have increased against Guatemalan labor unions, peasant and indigenous groups, and other organizations working for justice and human rights.

“We deserve justice.  We will continue to struggle until we have it.  As long as I’m alive, I will look to that day.”  -  Jacinta Raymundo, witness in genocide case.

What CAMINOS does

• Provides human rights accompaniers for witnesses testifying in genocide cases.
•  Responds to human rights abuses in Guatemala through an Urgent Action Network.
•  Facilitates exchanges between people of Guatemala and the US.
•  Educates Coloradans and elected representatives about current and historic issues  in Guatemala

We  are a Guatemala Accompaniment Project (GAP) Sponsoring Community. GAP is a national program of the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA). 

If you are interested in learning more about becoming a GAP accompanier click here.

PROMESA

Project Summary

The community of Tesorito in Suchitepequez, Guatemala is a group of 136 indigenous Mayan families who were relocated from their ancestral mountain home to the hot, humid coastal plain of southern Guatemala at the end of the Guatemalan Civil War (1940-1996). Today, after 9 years of re-settlement, these families continue to struggle with physical and cultural survival, complicated by local prejudices, different crops and climate, lack of natural resources, adverse weather (El Niño, Hurricane Mitch, and local drought), coastal diseases, limited access to health services and a declining economy. The community is weakened, isolated, and extremely impoverished.

Promesa is a partnership between three entities—CAMINOS in Denver, Colorado; St. Michael and All Angels’ Guatemala Project in Tucson, Arizona; and the Communities of Population in Resistance in Guatemala—that seeks to improve health and primary health care delivery for the community of Tesorito by supporting the community’s own existing health structures, as well as the health workers who serve as volunteers in their isolated home community in Guatemala.

Promesa supports the community of Tesorito in their quest for recognition as autonomous indigenous peoples, for dignity, and for the right to health care and basic medicines and supplies as identified by the community’s own health workers. Emphasis is upon mutuality, cultural exchange, indigenous self-determination, and self-sufficiency.  

 Promesa’s support includes:

• small monthly payments to health workers
• transportation for patients who can’t be treated locally
• travel costs for health workers in ongoing formal training
• purchase of medicines and low-tech medical supplies
• an annual community health survey in partnership with local health workers
• education to increase awareness of Guatemalan health and economic issues