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Letters from the Field
March, 2009 Texas/Mexico Border
Dear Friends,
Greetings to you from El Paso, Texas/Juarez, Mexico, where we just completed Capacitar trainings with people working to heal the growing violence on both sides of the border. This morning's headline in the El Paso Times announced: "More Troops arrive in Juarez." There are now over 7,000 troops and 2,300 federal police deployed by the Mexican government in Juarez as part of the surge, Joint Operation Chihuahua, focused on controlling the drug cartel warfare. Mexican officials say that last year the violence killed 6,290 people and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009.
Last Friday morning when Franciscan Sister Maureen Jerkowski, SSSF, and I traveled the short distance across the bridge from El Paso into Ciudad Juarez, we were greeted by hundreds of soldiers in the Plaza and dozens of black-hooded guards with machine guns surrounding the government offices. Like in January during our first visit there, the bridge and the usually busy streets, were silent and empty with a pall of fear everywhere. The area around the civic center has become increasingly violent with kidnappings, murders, decapitations, and extortion of small businesses and professionals caught in the drug cartel and gang warfare. Thousands of Mexicans have fled Juarez in recent months, and even the mayor of Juarez lives in El Paso.
After our Capacitar El Paso training in November, hosted by Centro Mujeres de la Esperanza (Center of Women of Hope), center director Maureen Jerkowski and I received an invitation to bring Capacitar to Juarez. Professora Carolina Lopez of TEC University in Chihuahua, recognized the value of Capacitar's work and recommended that the City of Juarez host workshops for psychologists, social workers and community-based organizations. In January we offered our first workshop there with 92 men and women representing 32 organizations. Psychologist Martin Mendiola and his team of 070 emergency hotline psychologists, in collaboration with the Women's Commission of Ciudad Juarez, coordinated the event that was held in the official government chambers. Participants came from many sectors including CEREZO prison, where last week 22 inmates were killed and over 30 injured in gang warfare inside the prison. Psychologists and social workers also participating in our workshop work with gangs, with street children, centers for domestic violence, centers for the defense of minors and for the protection of women, centers working with HIV/AIDS, women's groups united against violence, and family shelters.
Some of the psychologists described how teachers are being forced to pay bribes to protect the children in their classes, lest they be kidnapped and killed. Doctors and psychologists have to pay off the drug cartels for protection, otherwise they will be kidnapped and held for ransom. Nelly, a grassroots leader who works with gangs and HIV, described the situation of some families trying to survive in the midst of the daily threats. Children in her area often see the horrific decapitated bodies and the tortured thrown by the roadside; and they are beginning to play act the killings and decapitations.
Participants greatly appreciated the simple Capacitar skills that can be easily used for self-care as well as with the people they serve. Return participants last Friday described how they had been better able to manage their compassion fatigue and personal lives by using the fingerholds for balancing emotions, the tapping for healing memories of violence, the Tai Chi for releasing the stress of the day.
On the El Paso side of the border, our Capacitar training, sponsored by Centro Mujeres de la Esperanza (CME), is being offered to 80 women from El Paso and Juarez, as well as from other parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. CME, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary, gives invaluable services to the Hispanic border community, greatly impacted by these difficult economic times. In the first 3 months of this year alone, the center has served over 2200 women, as many people as it served all last year. Because donations and funding are way down, the center is also struggling to keep its doors open. Maureen said that many of the poor women who come to the center are now helping to raise funds by making burritos and selling what they can to help support CME. Some are even donating their 'widow's mite', fifty cents or a dollar a month, to help fund the center they so love. Capacitar will return again to El Paso and Juarez for trainings in June. And there is strong interest in securing funding for another cycle of trainings in 2010-2011 on both sides of the border.
CAPACITAR GROWTH IN 2009
2009 started as a busy year for Capacitar, with continued growth on many levels.
Trocaire Grant for Capacitar Research and Reflection
We recently received a significant grant from Trocaire, the Catholic Development Agency of Ireland, for a research, reflection and sharing project, that will involve Capacitar teams, trainers and multipliers in the US, Africa, Ireland and Latin America. Joan Condon will be project coordinator. Trocaire has funded Capacitar trainings in Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Tanzania, and is also interested in supporting Capacitar International's qualitative growth as an organization. We will be reflecting on the impact and outcomes of our work on individual participants, communities and organizations, as well as look at any systemic change resulting from our programs and methods. In collaboration with several universities and doctoral students we will reflect on and study the growing body of data and testimonies coming from the thousands of people whose lives and work have been significantly changed by Capacitar. The grant is funded for 18 months with the vision of convening a conference in 2011 in Ireland to publish and disseminate our reflections, findings and recommendations.
Trainings in Rwanda
I am recently returned from two weeks of trainings and meetings in Rwanda. Capacitar Rwanda coordinator, Antoinette Gasibirege SH, and her national team are offering workshops in many places, including schools, widows groups, trauma and HIV centers. Dates for a third cycle of two Trauma Healing trainings are set for 2010-2011, with support from Trocaire Rwanda for these programs. Trocaire is interested in bringing Capacitar to partner organizations they fund in the region. Capacitar Rwanda teams will also be available in different places around the country for the 15th anniversary of the genocide to support local communities in their grief and trauma during the memorial weeks of April.
Capacitar in Ireland and Northern Ireland
The 9th cycle of Capacitar Ireland trainings, was inaugurated in February at Teach Bride in Tullow, and coincided with a week of abundant snows throughout much of Ireland. Thirty-six women and men are participating in the new training, including a number of teachers and psychotherapists.
In Northern Ireland the newly formed Southern Health and Social Care Trust (covering Armagh, Dongallon, Craigaven, Newry and Mourne) is funding 25 counselors, therapists, and community leaders to participate in a training. The group is a very interesting cross-section of people offering services to disabled adults and children, the elderly, traumatized families from the Troubles, volunteer groups, youth at risk, suicide prevention, and women's groups. It is hoped that the Trust will take on future Capacitar trainings and methods as part of formation programs for community workers.
Capacitar in England and Scotland
New trainings in the UK were initiated in February in Hammersmith, London and in Glasgow, Scotland. Participants include therapists from the Glasgow torture rehabilitation center, spirituality centres, schools, refugee work, work with care facilities and the elderly, and other social outreach programs. Trainings are also scheduled for England in 2010-2011.
New Work in Africa
The Congregation of the Sacred Heart in England has funded our travel to initiate workshops in Uganda in August. Margaret Wilson, Capacitar England Coordinator and RSCJ provincial for England, and I will travel to Uganda to offer 2 weeks of workshops for different groups. Genevieve van Waesberghe, MMM, will initiate the first Ugandan workshops for Capacitar in May with the Medical Missionaries of Mary and other community groups.
El Salvador
Joan Condon inaugurated an in-depth training for 17 people in El Salvador in January. Participants represent various Salvadoran organizations: ACISAM, a mental health organization, IMU, a womenÃs organization. Terre de Homme Suiza, Bartolome de Las Casas, and the University of Central America, and include psychologists, naturopaths, students, and people who work in rural communities, along with two participants from Nicaragua and Guatemala. The second module will be given in May in San Salvador.
The Capacitar El Salvador team is working with women in rural communities in the municipality of Suchitoto to teach them Capacitar practices that they can use to deal with their own trauma and stress. The team just completed 8 workshops in El Bario for 30 women and are continuing work in La Primavera and Milingo with 13 and 22 women respectively.
Honduras
Joan Condon and Nancy Meyerhofer facilitated a leadership workshop for 22 people in March in Gracias, Lempira, Honduras. Twenty were young people involved in leadership in their church and their communities. The goal of the workshop was to teach them Capacitar practices they could use to deal with their own stress so as to be better leaders and to encourage them to think about what qualities a good leader needs as well as how to deal with conflict.
Thank you for your continued support of Capacitar. You are with us in spirit as we work in communities around the world.
Peace and blessings,
Pat Cane
Capacitar International Founder/Director
www.capacitar.org
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