The Peacebuilding en las Américas (PLA) program promotes peace and healing in countries where the violent legacy of civil war has added to the continued poverty and injustice that sparked the conflicts.  Weapons abound and crime, gang violence and continued political problems have compelled Quakers and others to seek new solutions.

The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) continues to grow in Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.  PLA offers basic and advanced level AVP workshops and trainings, and prepares local volunteers to lead them.  Working alongside local partner organizations, we strive to strengthen existing AVP organizations and continue to train new groups in dealing with conflict nonviolently.  Learn more about AVP.

PLA also practices community-based trauma healing work modeled on the Healing and Rebuilding our Communities program (HROC), work of our African partners.  In Colombia the workshops are called Sanidad del Trauma (Trauma Healing, SdT) workshops.

In 2007, a Colombian AVP facilitator joined two members of our working group in Burundi to learn about the HROC program.  The Burundians were overjoyed to find that despite experiencing devastating violence, they had something of great value to offer others in similar situations.  Now, the Colombians are eager to share what they have learned and implemented in their country, and Central Americans are hungry to learn more about working with their trauma to go on with their lives.

Programs and Locations

Colombia

FPT supports work in Bogotá and on the northern coast, where many displaced people, demobilized combatants (from the Army, guerrilla, and paramilitary groups) and conscientious objectors struggle to find more peaceful ways to survive.

El Salvador

AVP continues to grow throughout El Salvador, and will soon be introduced to the Co-Madres (Mothers and Families of the Disappeared).

Guatemala

Friends Peace Teams partners with a well-developed program of training for women offered by an ecumenical pastoral institute, which has over 20 trained AVP facilitators and has held more than 15 AVP workshops in 2009.

Nicaragua

A number of Nicaraguan AVP facilitators have been assisting with workshops organized mostly by international facilitators.  FPT efforts will focus on helping Nicaraguans develop a self-sustaining AVP program.

Costa Rica

Contacts with a long-standing group doing AVP and mediation work has led to an invitation to hold a trauma healing workshop and to train AVP Facilitators in the techniques of trauma healing.

Honduras

Hondurans continue to protest nonviolently and work every day for a peaceful restoration of their elected government.  They have a deep desire for the kind of training AVP can offer them.  Our work is not only helping people recover from violence inflicted in their lives, but also strives to find alternatives when circumstances seem poised for a violent response.  Friends Peace Teams is working to carry out intensive trainings in AVP and other models of effective nonviolent resistance.

This ambitious new program urgently needs your support.

Please donate today to Friends Peace Teams' work through Peacebuilding en Las Américas. Thanks for your continued support.