Jairo is Survivor Corps’ Strategic Director for Colombia. He’s the only staff member for Survivor Corps in Colombia, but his knowledge, experience, and contacts have made this post second nature for him and allowed Survivor Corps’ program flourish.
Advocacy in Action
On Monday, Jesus Martinez, executive director of the Red de Sobrevivientes, and nine other local organizations working for disability rights in El Salvador, met with San Salvador’s newly elected Mayor, Dr. Norman Quijano. The objective of the meeting was to discuss an all-inclusive disability rights platform to be integrated into the Mayor’s new policies, especially in regards to the newly proposed and highly contested Metrobus project.
El Diario de Hoy published an article with quite a bit of spin yesterday. The Commission of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities have not committed to support the Metrobus project unless the Mayor agrees to make the new system accessible (by including lifts and ramps, making adjustments of local bus stops and curbs, and include modifications for people with visual impairments).
“Transportation is one of the biggest obstacles for people with disabilities in El Salvador,” Martinez said.
The current system is a socially constructed form of discrimination. For example a person who uses a wheelchair, who cannot afford their own vehicle or who does not have someone who can assist them to get on and off the bus, faces obstacles that sometimes leave them confined to their home or neighborhood. In a city without ramps or enforced regulations to keep sidewalks clear from obstructions (such as parked cars) travel becomes an obstacle course. Without being able to travel freely in the city, persons with disabilities are then forced to face another level of instututional barriers.
If transportation is nearly impossible, think about how difficult it would be to find a job, go to a doctor’s appointment, or even complete daily tasks such as grocery shopping or taking your children to school.
This was only the Commission’s first meeting with the Mayor’s office. Martinez and his associates are hopeful that in the coming weeks there will be a commitment from Quijano to make the new transportation system completely accessible for persons with disabilities. Alberto Monterrosa, assistant manager of Municipal Public Participation office, and David Reyes, a member of the Legislative Assembly who himself uses a wheelchair, have committed to help push the accessibility policy through.
Juan Pablo Salazar is the young and energetic President of Fundación ArcÁngeles, a partner organization of Survivor Corps in Bogotá, Colombia. Juan Pablo discusses the issue of disabilities in Colombia, how the 40 year + civil war affects the way his organization works, and the partnership with Survivor Corps.
When you first meet Selena you notice the sparkle in her eyes, if you look a little closer you can see a girl wiser and more mature than most her age. In many ways Selena Romero is like any other 13 year old girl I’ve met. She likes to hang out with her friends, play basketball, listen to music and loves fashion. She always makes sure her earrings match her shirt and spends more than enough time fixing her long dark hair before school. What you don’t notice right away when you first meet Selena, is that she uses a prosthetic leg.
Last year after complications from thrombosis (a severe blood clot), Selena lost her left leg. Doctors were forced to amputate above the knee after severe damage due to oxygen loss from the clot. She spent just over three months in the hospital recuperating and several months in physical therapy. After receiving continued peer support from Dimas Gonzalez, outreach worker for the Red de Sobrevivientes, she was determined to get back to life and finish the school year with her friends.
Selena received a prosthetic leg from the Red de Sobrevivientes just four months ago. They say that children learn fast, they bounce back, they’re resilient. In Selena’s case nothing could be more true. She practiced for hours every day with her new prosthetic leg until she was strutting like a model on the catwalk. She doesn’t use her crutches anymore and hasn’t sat in a wheelchair since the day she received her prosthetic leg. She started playing basketball again with her friends, and two months ago she picked up her old rusty bike and re-taught herself to ride.
“I fell a lot and scratched my arms,” she said, “but now its easy. I ride to school everyday and can still beat my little cousin in a race.”
Selena will be in seventh grade this year. She is excited about going to middle school, her favorite subject is math, and she aspires to be a medical doctor one day. A typical teenage girl with a very special personality trait. Selena is a survivor. She took the trauma from her amputation and turned it into motivation.
Marina was half an hour away from being forcefully recruited to the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla group. Female guerrillas had told her their commander wanted Marina to “work” with him. “Work” in this regard meant helping plan operations and serving as his personal escort. Marina fled to Medellín, just minutes before the female guerrillas returned to take her away, and found herself taken in by nuns in a convent. With help from the nuns, she found work at a daycare and went to school at night and on the weekends, eventually receiving her high school diploma.
The nuns sent her to the little town of San Francisco where a priest was to take on missionary work around Colombia. Marina joined him and upon return settled into life in San Francisco. At just 25 years old, she has worked her way up to Vice President of Renacer con Fe, the organization with which Survivor Corps collaborates on reconciliation projects. She is in charge of programs regarding the forcefully displaced in her area, of which group Marina herself is a member.
Marina has a lot on her hands; raising a 17 month old son by herself, maintaining a relationship with her family who is too afraid of violence recurring around San Francisco to visit her, dealing with the trauma of forced displacement, of almost having been forcefully recruited into the FARC, and worrying about the father of her son who is gone serving the obligatory military requirement.
Marina is a candid person, and that’s what I like about her. She’s not afraid to breastfeed in public, wake me up from naps, ask me personal questions, or be on her own (or at least she hides it well).
Meeting Marina and seeing her rise above the stresses and dangers in her life is amazing to me. One tries to imagine oneself in these situations and think, “What would I do in her shoes.” I hope that I would be as determined as Marina to make life work and give back.
A demobilized paramilitary wants the best for his village
Don Diego feels remorse for his time as a paramilitary. He was in the autodefensas (self-defense forces) for almost four years, only a few months of which entailed an actual combat position. Don Diego was (and still is) close with a paramilitary commander named MacGiver (pronounced, mock-gee-bear), whose autodefensas career began in 1988 after the murder of his brother by the ELN guerrilla group.
Don Diego joined the paramilitaries in 2000. He says he joined to end the injustices carried out by guerrillas which were very active in that time in his village. He wanted to protect people. Because of his close relationship with MacGiver, Diego was appointed as head of social programs for the autodefensas around San Francisco, where both men are from. Through this post, Diego would liaise between the village and MacGiver, coordinating the construction of new roads, infrastructure such as street lamps, and other projects.
Diego’s take on his country’s conflict struck me as suprisingly lucid. The high exposure to propaganda through cable news and the armed groups themselves let alone his obvious bias to the group of which he was a member seemed to not effect his explanation. He was demobilized in 2005 through the Justice and Peace Law, which aims to “negotiat[e] the transition to peace with the right-wing paramilitary groups, by offering them incentives to give up fighting and at the same time redress the victims, ensuring justice and finding the truth.” He is confident that almost everyone from San Francisco involved in the autodefensas has been successfully demobilized, but fears the lack of job opportunities in his village may end up back with the autodefensas in another part of Colombia.
What Diego wanted to make very clear with me is when explaining how the autodefensas worked in San Francisco, is that he is NOT generalizing about paramilitary groups. He can only speak for the San Francisco autodefensas. They took up arms in 2000 because the guerrillas were invading and the Colombian military was not present and did not seem to be planning a presence. He does not know what the other autodefensas do or why they join.
I asked Don Diego, as his friends call him, why he decided to get involved in the reconciliation process. He told me he didn’t have a lot going on (a common situation for San Francisco citizens) and he, without sharing details, he explained that when he first joined the paramilitaries he was involved in combat. Enough said. He seemed to have some skeletons in the closet he did not feel comfortable sharing with me in the presence of his wife (above). He instead emphasized the experience he had as head of social programs. He was also proud to have been the liaison between the encarcerated MacGiver and victims in San Francisco. Victims ended up being about to visit MacGiver in the high-security Bogotá prison where he is serving a 20 year sentence, all on MacGiver’s bill.
Don Diego is proud of MacGiver’s social bent while commander of the paramilitaries around San Francisco. He, like MacGiver, want to see their village succeed. Diego is disappointed with the lack of government subsidies or even interest in his village. He envisions San Franciscan’s harvesting sugar cane or tending to any kind of farming, but does not think the government will provide such opportunities. Until then, Diego is doing his part by participating in reconciliation forums and conflict resolution workshops. Don Diego is surviving life after autodefensas.
This Reconciliation Project Fair commemorates three reconciliation projects in action across the department of Antioquia in Colombia. After more than 40 years of civil war between right wing paramilitaries, left wing guerrillas, and the military, these survivors have overcome unimaginable pain and loss. Watch this video to learn more about the event and each project! Survivor Corps and ConCiudadania contributed to the organizations’ projects.
“I learned how to transform my pain.”
It has not been easy for Martha Gil to learn how to forgive. During guerrilla occupation of her village in 2002, her son was killed. She told me the story with obvious pain still penetrating her body. She fidgeted and stared at her hands while telling me hurriedly that her son is gone. She would quickly look at me, touch my shoulder, then continue her story.
When she decided to take a course on mental health from Survivor Corps partner ConCiudadania, it was very therapeutic. Upon graduation from the course, Martha returned to her village of San Francisco and now herself leads therapy groups for adults and children as a Promotora de Vida y Salud Mental, in English: Life and Mental Health Promoter. “I learned how to transform my pain.”
Martha’s diploma from ConCiudadania which certified her to lead the groups is proudly hung on her living room wall next to two photos of her receiving the certificate at a ConCiudadania ceremony. These three pictures take up half of the photos in the room. She is proud.
As part of my work as a fellow I’ve been giving one-on-one trainings about new media to the outreach workers and staff of la Red de Sobrevivientes. Last week, outreach worker Dimas Gonzalez and I sat down to piece together a short slide show presentation about survivor Josseline Salguero.
Just last year Josseline lost her right leg above the knee after she stepped on an undetonated grenade while playing with friends in a field near her home. While in the hospital, she received peer support and coping skills from the Red’s outreach worker Vanessa Torres. Since her release from the hospital, she has been visited in her home on a regular basis by Dimas. Dimas and Josseline have formed a special bond. As someone who has also lost a leg as a result of the civil war, Dimas can identify with Josseline on many levels.
We felt it was appropriate for Dimas to use his own voice to tell the story of Josseline’s recovery and transition to survivorship. Josseline received a new prosthetic leg from the Gloria Kriete Foundation and the Red wanted to showcase her story during a special event held last week. The photos, videos, voiceover and creative eyes behind this video belong to Dimas. My contribution is the technical support…teaching Dimas to use the tools like the Flip Camera and Windows Movie Maker.
