DESGUA Welcomes Santa Anita members- coffee cooperative composed of resettled guerrilla combatants and refugees-please forward
karen del Aguila
DESGUA DESAROLLO POR UNA GUATEMALA SUSTENTABLE
In collaboration with Tufts University
is proud to present
No Alcanza:
Voices from Guatemala’s Enduring Search for Peace
Date:Monday February 8th, 2010
Location: 219 51st Street Brooklyn
between 2nd and 3rd avenues
(R train to 53th St station)
Time: 6pm
This international forum aims to highlight the international relevance of Guatemala, its ongoing sociopolitical struggles, and its implications on the everyday lives of Americans. Additionally, the forum seeks to be a catalyst for awareness and fundraising for the continuing development of Santa Anita la Unión, a community emblematic of Guatemala’s historical tragedies and contemporary challenges.
Santa Anita is a small coffee cooperative composed of resettled guerrilla combatants and refugees from the Guatemalan Civil war, which plagued the country from 1960-1996. More than 200,000 people were killed in those 36 years, with more than 1.2 million people internally displaced and nearly half a million fleeing across international borders as refugees and asylum-seekers. In 1996 all parties to the conflict signed a set of Peace Accords, yet Guatemala’s social tensions and the root causes of conflict remain unaddressed and smolder under layers of complacency, corruption, and continued violence. The No Alcanza Forum aims to bring together academics, scholars, professionals, and every day men and women who drive the contemporary struggle for equality and development in Guatemala. The Forum will provide attendees with the opportunity to directly hear from and interact with men and women who fought in the country’s civil conflict, as well as experts and professionals from the fields of agriculture, development, migration, drug trafficking, and gang violence, who will speak to the international relevance of a country so often forgotten under today’s headlines. The Forum will include speeches, panel discussions, film screenings, which will all serve to provide a more appropriate and accurate depiction of one community’s struggle and an entire country’s ongoing fight for something more. Overall, the Forum seeks to provide a sense of hope that in the future we will no longer hear the cries of “No Alcanza” from the Guatemalan people, a hope that smoldering memories can be extinguished and laid to rest, and a hope that peace will finally hold its ground after centuries of instability and fear.
Karen Del Aguila