Honduras to feature theLent2017campaing

NewsletterWinter2016 -2017

Honduras will be the centre of theTrócaire 2017 Lentcampaign.The Lent box for the year will feature thestory of Mariam and María José, mother anddaughter from the Cuyamel Sandbar community, inthe Northwest of Honduras.This coastal village inunder threat because of climate change.With everystorm, the sea floods the houses, and they have toescape to save their lives.The rising sea level and thefact that an earthquake sunk the land are making lifeharder for them. Another story featuring in thiscampaign will be Cándido and Elvia, an elderlycouple struggling to keep going among thedifficulties.They recently lost their house.

Trócaire has supported the digging of canals tofacilitate the evacuation, but what the communityneeds is a complete relocation on higher ground.Our partner, the Mennonite Social Action Committeehas been doing an excellent job training the localpeople to react appropriately when the disasterstrikes and to save as many lives as possible.Theyhave also made a massive effort to reinforce thelocal emergency committee. The committeecoordinator, Santos Francisco, is also in charge oftaking the people out on his boat.

As part of the campaign, in November a group ofTrócaire representative from several Irish dioceses(priest, a deacon and parish workers) visited thecommunity and other projects in the country.Theyhad the chance to discover first-hand the stark realitythese people are facing and howmuch the support isneeded. The priest also had the opportunity toconcelebrate mass in Puerto Cortés together with aSpanish priest. With this visit, we not only want topromote our work but also achieve a betterunderstanding in Ireland ofTrócaire's work overseas.

Miram and María José in the Cuyamel Sandba.

Photo:Trócaire,

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Ourprojects inCentralAmerica

Represenatives from ECHO recently visited thisproject , which is executed along with Action AgainstHunger, Centrarse and the Private Research Institutefor Climate Change Research (ICC).

The project focuses its efforts in improving thenational capacity of coordinated management fordisaster risk with participation of the private and publicsectors, and civil society.The experienceis based on a previous governancemodel validated in Escuintla.

The department emergency committeeand the local network of planning boardhave been strengthened, with a focus onfloods. The continuity of the roundtablesof the Madre Vieja and Achiguate Rivershas also been supported through theDepartmental Governorship and the restof institutions involved.

Public andPrivateAlliancesforDisasterRiskManagementinGuatemala

Trócaire together with other three civil societyorganisations to develop a project aimed atovercome the barrier faced by the Lenca indiginouspopulation of La Paz in accessing justice. The mainones are poverty, culture, lack of knowledge, genderdiscrimination and the citizen's perception of anineffective and unreliable justice system.The projectwill train 120 justice operator to make them moresensible to vulnerable population demands. 55% ofLa Paz department is Lenca, who are usually thepoorest and more vulnerable social group, asituation even worse for women. The number ofdirect beneficiaries totals more than 1000 people.

Improvingaccess to justice fortheLencapopulationofLaPaz

ImprovingPrimaryHealthCareforwomenandadolescentes infive municipalitiesofHonduras

Trócaire together with three partners is about to launch aproject to improve primary health care for women andadolescents in different municipalities of Copán,Choluteca, La Paz and Ocotepeque. The project is fundedthrough the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), whichmanages funds from the US government MillenniumChallenge Corporation. The MCA funds objective is toimprove the transparency of the HonduranadministrationsThe main aims are to carry a social audit ofthe primary health services for the target audience, inorder to make them more effective, and also tostrengthen the women networks advocacy and socialaudit capacities.

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The project has successfully managed to set up andinitiate the training of local emergency committees in 11new communities and ensure that municipal emergencycommittees support them. The coordination with theprivate sector and the government is being strengthened.For instance the project has designed a methodologicalguide to develop a Business Contingency Plan with aSocial Perspective. The guide is being piloted in 20companies, including companies that are not maquilas (ienot fabric industries). The Government will then certifythat guide that will be used in all types of businesses in

Honduras, which goes beyond the objective of the projectand motivates us to scale up the work, targeting variousbusiness sectors, including through Chambers ofCommerce. The project objective remains the harnessingof resources from the private sector in order to strengthencommunity preparedness, with a focus on the mostvulnerable communities.The project has also managed toset up strong links between Municipal emergencycommittees and businesses so that nowadays thecommunication between them takes place directly inmany cases.The project has also developed a good levelof cooperation with the network of 21 mayors of all themunicipalities of the Sula Valley that has led to thedevelopment of early warning systems for floods and theadoption of a specific participatory vulnerability analysismethodology by the municipalities. Sensitisation work hasbeen carried out with the different thematic round tablesof the SulaValley, involvingmany State institutions.

Illuminating lives inNorthernNicaragua

This project will provide access to electricity through theuse of solar panels for 55 families in 14 communitiesthus benefitting a total of 275 people of Matagalpa,

Northern Nicaragua. Our partner ADDACalready has experience in the area. Currently,the families depend on kerosene, gas,candles and batteries. Every other day, theyhave to travel to neighbouring villages torecharge their cell phones. Apart from thecosts and the time and expense of the travelitself, the houses fill with smoke, causingrespiratory problems.The use of candles andoil lamps also increases the risk of skin

burns, while the use of batteries is a contaminatingsource of waste in the remote communities. Theprovision of renewable electricity will also support theeducation of children, save family resources (money andtime), and help the conservation of the environment.

The severe drought that has affected Nicaraguashows that accessing land is not enough forwomen to produce their income, access to wateris as important as access to land. To mitigate theeffects of the drought, BLF increased the fundsfor the project "Land for women, opportunities forlife" in 75.000 GBP. The money was invested inwater harvesting works (reservoirs, wells,collections basins, etc.), soil and waterpreservation actions and the recovery of drought-

resistant Criollo seeds.These additional funds arecontributing to filling the project objectives:improving women's access to productive landand increasing their capacity to produce enoughfood for the families. During the first two years ofthe project, more than 300 women haveaccessed land trough purchasing, rent,sharecropping, titles legalisation and inheritance.Ensuring access to water also createsopportunities for life.

Land forwomenopportunities for life

Consolidatingandinstitutionalizing thesharedcommitmentof theprivatesector, governmentandcivilsociety todisaster risk reductionin theSulaValley

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Trócaire condemns themurderof JeremyBarrios

On November 12, 2016, in Guatemala City, JeremyAbraham Barrios Lima was shot in the head by twounidentified assailants on a passing motorbike. He was 22years old. He had worked for the last two years with ourpartner CALAS (Centre for Legal, Environmental and SocialAction) as assistant to the director. We stand in solidaritywith his mother, sisters, and other family members, aswell as the Guatemalan human rights community.According to CALAS, Jeremy had not received any threatsin the days prior to the murder. However, other membershave been subjected to intimidation, attacks andattempted assassinations in the past.

On 30 November 2015, Pedro Rafael Maldonado Flores,head of the legal team at CALAS, received death threatsvia his Twitter account. A few months earlier, on 29 July2015, Pedro Rafael was in the CALAS office, when anunknown gunman on a motorbike fired a number ofshots outside. CALAS director Yuri Melini also survivedan assassination attempt in 2008, when he was shotseveral times outside the home of a family member.Theinvestigation into Jeremy’s murder should explore thevery likely possibility that he was killed in retaliation forhis legitimate human rights work.

Trócaire is deeply concerned about the dangerous andoften deadly environment for human rights defenders

working in defence of environmental, indigenouspeoples’ and land rights in Guatemala and urges theState of Guatemala to provide adequate and effectiveprotective measures to guarantee their safety andsecurity as well as:

1. Strongly condemning the killing of human rightsdefender Jeremy Abraham Barrios Lima;

2. Carrying out an immediate, thorough and impartialinvestigation into the killing of Jeremy;

3. Guaranteeing that all human rights defenders inGuatemala are able to carry out their legitimate humanrights activities without fear of reprisals and free of allrestrictions, including judicial harassment.

Rafael Maldonado, head of the legal team at CALAS,visited Ireland short after Jeremy’s assassination Duringhis stay, Maldonado had the chance to meet severalstakeholders to raise awareness about the risks faced byHuman Rights defenders in Guatemala. He had thechance to meet Trócaire staff and university students.Moreover, Maldonado also met with officials from theDepartment of Foreign Affairs, members of the HumanRights Committee of the Irish Parliament and theChairman of the Bar Council of Ireland.

Guatemala

Trócaire staff in Maynooth with with Rafael Maldonado from Calas last November

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Guatemala

The International NGO Forum (FONGI), currentlyunder Trócaire's presidency, organised a forum withcivil society organisation to celebrate the 20 years ofthe peace agreements that ended a 36 years longinternal armed conflict. The findings were laterpresented to the diplomatic corps stationed in thecountry.

The signing of the peace agreements was a historicmoment for Guatemala, where civil society chose therule of law and a democratic, peaceful andmulticultural state. International cooperation played amajor role in the negotiation and its enforcement.However, many of the root causes of the conflict,such as violence (especially against women),inequality, corruption and monoculturalism are stillpresent.

There has been a constant support to strengthen thecivil society. Nowadays it is more informed andorganised, and there have been successes intransitional justice and on cases of sexual violenceand slavery against women, like the Sepur Zarcocase. Survivors of the internal conflict and threatenedand persecuted defenders value the international aidsupport.

However, there is still work to do to better integratedifferent programmes and the work of differentagencies. Also, we need more self-criticism to readbetter the context and regain the link withcommunities and grassroots groups that we havelost due to bureaucratisation and finance andtechnical requirements. We need to bet on structuralchanges and also challenge the economic systemthat causes the impoverishment of countries likeGuatemala. We have to work together to overcomesthe obstacles to keep enforcing the peaceagreements more effectively.

20 years since the peaceagreements

Strategic Litigation and gender focus have not alwaysworked together as they should. For that reason andto open a space of dialogue and exchange, Trócaire,along with Lawyers Without Borders of Canada andthe UN Human Rights Commissioner for HumanRight through the Maya II Programme organised inMay 2016 the meeting “Incorporating indigenouswomen experiences in Strategic Litigation”.

Strategic Litigation is common to tackle many severehuman rights violations nowadays. This impliesfollowing different strategies (legal, political,communicational, educative, social, security andfinance and administrative) to use the law as a toolfor social change. The main aim is to defend thecollective interest and to promote human rights andsocial justice. However, neither the genderperspective nor the participation of indigenouswomen has been taken into account.

Thanks to the findings of the meeting a guide is nowbeing produced to better explain the idea andprinciples of Strategic Litigation and the national andinternational framework. The documents also offerbackground information about the role of racism andpatriarchy on the systematic exclusion of indigenouswomen.

Finally, the guide will include three unique cases ofStrategic Litigation: The sexual violence againstwomen during the Ixil Genocide; the sexual anddomestic slavery against Q’eqchi women in SepurZarco and the systemic violence against traditionalMayan midwives and their patients. At the end thewill also be guidelines on how to work withindigenous women on Strategic Litigations.

IndigenouswomenandStrategicLitigation

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Honduras

Analysingpowerbalancesforabetter advocacy

Fightinghuman traffickinginCentralAmericaborders

Human trafficking is a silent crime slipping throughthe Central American borders, so silent that it mayescape the radar of women organisations. If somebut not all. Calidad de Vida, a group created 20 yearsago, is a pioneer in supporting the victims of thiscrime in Honduras. A work that Trócaire has beensupporting for the last two years.

Ana Lizeth Cruz, Calidad de Vida director, explainsthat they started working in this field when theybegan to received human trafficking victims in theshelter for GBV victims they run in Tegucigalpa. "Weknew nothing, we started learning by doing becauseit is a completely different world supporting humantrafficking victims, it is much more demanding, asthese women usually are so traumatised that theyjust want to kill themselves".

To attack the roots of the problems, they startedworking in three local authorities borderingGuatemala and El Salvador. "The concept wascompletely new to them, but once we have begunexplaining, women and children, were able to relateto past experiences in their communities, and somewomen were even afraid of how many traffickedwomen may have gone through their towns". Calidadde Vida created and supported Local Committees forHuman Trafficking Prevention, bringing together thelocal representatives of government departments andjustice operators.

Bringing on justice operators is so importantbecause of their lack of training and respect or thevictims' rights. "They treated these women aswitness for criminal trials, and they don't care if theyfeel safe to testify or not". The lack of funds for policeraids against human trafficking and the legalloopholes created by a badly drafted law are alsoroadblock in this fight. "We keep banging, whereverwe could" says Ana Lizeth with a broad smile.

To identify the priority issues for political advocacythat will guide the actions during the next years,Trócaire Honduras developed during the last fewmonths of 2016 a series of workshops on poweranalysis covering the four working areas determinedby the new country strategic plan.

The methodology used was the "Power Cube". Thistool offers a framework to analyse different featuresof power and how they relate to each other. Severalpartners attended the events, who were facilitated bythe country programme team and by Leigh Bradyfrom Maynooth at the beginning. Thanks to thisactivity, now there are advocacy plans focuses on thetopics dealt: Protection of Human Rights Defenders,Acess and Control of Natural Resources, Preventionand Support for Gender-Based Violence Victims, riskmanagement and Climate Change. These plans willguide the action and the development of politicaladvocacy following the actions lines established until2021.

During the workshops, the Country Strategic Planwas presented and the rights approach and powerapproach and empowerment for Trócaire. In thisframework, it is acknowledged that unequal powerrelationships are the root and cause fo inequality,poverty, discrimination, dispossession and impunityfaced by the majority of the population in thesecountries. Our goal is to transform these powerrelationships through these approaches.

José Alfredo Coto, Human Rights PO, speaking at one

of the workshops.

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Nicaragua

In a shrinking space for civil society in Nicaragua,Trócaireand Global Communities have joined forces to supportlocal organisations promoting social audits of publicresources. Thus, Trócaire and Global Communities aresupporting Nicaraguan citizens to exercise their right tokeep government accountable on how public institutionsmanage tax-payers money. Many organisations arefinding increasingly difficult to work with the authoritiesas the government is not coordinating with civil societyorganisations.

As a first step, Trócaire and Global Communities broughttogether 60 civil society organisation in August, coveringfrom local groups to cooperatives and national. Theorganisations are auditing gender equality policies; youth,childhood and sexual diversity policies, for people withdisabilities, local and national public services and socialpolicies as well as water and infrastructure investments.More than 100 people from all over Nicaragua took partin the event to strengthen relationships, build new ones,and plan and discuss future collaborations among them.

The organising team created a website to shareinformation and the experiences to be presented at theevent. After some discussion about its the future,partners of Trócaire and Global Communities took theinitiative and proposed the development of an onlinetraining on social media and multimedia contentproduction, targeting mainly youth.The aim of the courseis to strengthen their capacities in social audit anddisseminate information with the local population.Trócaire and Global Communities are planning to repeatthe course in the future and involve a local university toendorse the course with an official certificate

On the long term, the idea is to have a group of peoplewilling to provide content for the website, so it becomesa space to share learning and successful experiencesamong the different organisations.

Strengthening thecitizensvoice

Course participants withTrócaire and parterns staff in

Managua on the first day of the course

After 7 years, the Nicaraguan GBVP programme iscoming to an end. As a closing event, partners andTrócaire staff came together for a two-day workshopon November 28th and 29th to share learning andmethodologies. The partners have developed someunique strategies to tackle GBV, some of them usingdifferent types of art.

Participants had the chance to play with puppets thatbeneficiaries of one of our partners (North BataholaCultural Centre) had used to perform plays in theirneighbourhoods. Another partner, Funarte, puteverybody’s hands on painting to express what theyfelt after listening to a feminist rap song. Some of thebeneficiaries grew up with the programme.

At the end, the Nicaragua CD Martín Larrecocheahanded plaques recognising the work of each partner.Sadly, two organisation from Costa Rica, CENDEROSand Pastoral Social from Ciudad Quesada couldn’tattend the event given that their target communitieswere affected by Hurricane Otto on October 24th.

Patricia Ruíz (CCBN) expermienting Funarte's

methodology

Celebrating7yearsofworkagainstGBV

Partners representatives withTrócaire staff

Contact:

SantiagoAgra, Support Officer for Communications

santiago.agrabermejo@trocaire.org

Mary Robinson visited Honduras in July as the UNSecretary-General's Special Envoy for El Niño andClimate. She came to draw the attention and requestmore funding and non-politicised pro-poor publicpolicies to support 3.5 million people who are in asituation of food insecurity due to the worst droughtin decades in Central America. She spent a full day inthe field visiting two Trócaire partners and met aswell with civil society networks working on climatechange. At her press conference, she explained thatEl Niño and La Niña are aggravated by climatechange, highlighted the fact that women are moreaffected by drought than men and called for publicinvestment and policies that can strengthen theresilience of poor rural communities as well as aneed to channel funding to attend the emergency. Itshould not become a forgotten emergency sheadded. Many families have had to sell most of theirlivelihoods assets and have

reduced their food intake to two or even in somecases one meal a day she said. As a former HighCommissioner for Human Rights, she alsocondemned the concentration of wealth and land infew hands and the killing and harassment of land andenvironmental activists and denounced the miningindustry and irresponsible solar energy projects fordamaging the environment by for instance fellingforests to set up solar panels. She also called for arespect of international treaties like ILO C-169 thatgrants indigenous communities the right to free,prior and informed consultation before extractiveindustries can tap into the resources of theirterritories. Overall she definitely contributed tosetting the agenda for the themes that are central toTrócaire’s strategyin Honduras.

Former IrishPresidentMaryRobinsonvisitsHonduras