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Stories - South America
Capacitar's Growth in Bolivia
Barbara Roose, Capacitar Bolivia
Sister Luz, in her late sixties, whose name appropriately means Light, travelled thirty hours from a hot tropical town in the lowlands to an altitude of 13,500 feet to participate in the first national Capacitar workshop held in La Paz. Inspite of several buses breaking down on route, she arrived as chipper as though she had left her house ten minutes prior. Her words at the beginning of the workshop reflected the feelings of the majority of the 19 women and men participants: "I have no idea what we are going to do, but the title of the workshop (Personal and Communal Healing and Transformation) intrigued me. Even though I have not left my area in a long time, I gladly agreed to represent our five Sisters here." At the end of the workshop her parting words were: "I feel so alive, I am going to teach my community what I learned. I am also going to encourage the Federation of Religious nearest me, to hold a Capacitar Workshop. For the first time ever in my life I received and gave a massage. Life is so wonderful!" Another dream for Capacitar-Bolivia had come true with the Conference of Bolivian Religious (CBR) sponsoring a workshop, as part of their national health education services. In spite of the recent violence throughout the country, eleven congregations sent people from cities and rural areas of Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Oruro and La Paz. The group included Bolivians, Brazilians, Colombians, several Spaniards, two Americans and a Peruvian. Participants worked with a variety of grassroots people including, prisoners, children, youth, the disabled, street children, the elderly, sexually abused women, and health services. They saw how various modalities could be applied to their specific groups and situations. Besides learning the practices, participants greatly desired to create in their busy lives a sense of balance and harmony between giving and receiving and between healing themselves and teaching others.
Continued work with the CBR is a great opportunity to multiply Capacitar's concern for peace and justice through its teaching and reintegration of the body-mind-spirit connection on personal and communal levels. We are deeply grateful to the CBR for this opportunity to share Capacitar with its members.
Capacitar in Colombia
Newsletter, Spring 2002
The magnitude of emotional pain in Colombia is a huge challenge. Most of the population is traumatized. Two and a half million people are displaced and each day more flee from conflicted areas. Kidnappings are common. The violence escalates and the US appropriation of more than a billion dollars to the Colombian military threatens to make matters worse. Judging from peoples' very enthusiastic response to Capacitar work in April and May when Pat Cane and Pat Farrell were in Colombia, Capacitar's approach, which empowers people through popular education to take on their own and their community healing, brings hope.
The goal was to further develop the Colombian Capacitar team and to plan a year-long course of Capacitar practices for those who give workshops locally. In Medellin leadership is emerging among religious and lay Franciscans working with the displaced. Cali's team is a rich combination of university professors and students, leaders of grassroots women's organizations, religious, workers from a network of solidarity with political prisoners, and kidnap victims who have formed an organization to help other victims. Team members from the outlying cities of Buenaventura and Pereira outreach to displaced people in those areas. In Bogota we trained religious, popular educators, and people who work in the prisons.
We welcome to the Capacitar network of personal and global transformation the remarkable, courageous Colombians. During this very difficult time in their history many continue to face threats to their personal security. Yet they have assumed the commitment to bring healing to their people and to build peace from an inner place of strength and wisdom.
Capacitar in Colombia - Patricia Mathes Cane
Newsletter, Fall 2001
Colombia with a population of 40 million is called the most violent country in the world. The people live in a climate of fear with a long history of atrocities carried out by military, paramilitary forces, and the guerillas (FARC). Over two million persons have been displaced from their homes because of the violence. A number of communities and geographical areas of the country are also seriously affected by fumigation with toxic chemicals promoted by the US government in its war on drugs. With the development of Plan Colombia, globalization of the economy and the drug war, the majority of Colombians live as victims of this state of terror. The majority of people live in constant fear, afraid to go into the countryside, and suffer some form of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In a two-week exploratory visit in August, Pat Farrell, OSF, of our El Salvador and International Teams, and I studied the reality in four areas of the country (Cali, Buenaventura, Bogota, and Medellin) to see if our Capacitar program would be beneficial for people affected by the violence. During the visit, "las dos Patricias", as we were often called, offered preliminary workshops to several hundred women, men and children, including many displaced persons and survivors of massacres. We also talked with community leaders, women's networks, grassroots organizations, religious, and members of the Franciscan Network in order to assess the situation and Capacitar's potential role. As a result of this first visit, Capacitar received a very positive response from community leaders as well as invitations to continue the work. A plan for 2002-2003 is being developed in collaboration with grassroots groups and religious leaders to address the overwhelming needs in mental health, especially with displaced communities and in conflict zones.
In each place where we worked Pat and I were very moved by the beauty and abundant resources of the country as well as the warmth and hospitality of the Colombian people. We were also impacted by the tremendous hunger of people to learn what they could to heal the woundedness of their lives and communities. This was especially true with groups of survivors and displaced persons who are having to rebuild their lives after losing all their possessions as well as their loved ones. There is overwhelming trauma everywhere and few psychologists and therapists who are able to respond to the immensity of the problem. So Capacitar's popular education approach to trauma healing and self-care will be an effective model to develop. Pat Farrell will be Capacitar's coordinator for developing the work and a team of trainers in Colombia.
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