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How can we work in communities where is drug trafficking? How is it possible to avoid conflict with gangs?
Click here for the SAL "Civil Society Against Gang Violence" Project.
- Hernando Roldán is famous in the city of Medellín (the most violent city in the whole of Latin America) for his work in conflict resolution and rebuilding communities destroyed by war and narco-trafficking. You can read his interview with Shine a light in which he explains his techniques by clicking here.
Contact Mr. Roldán a hrs@ept.net.co
- Jóvenes Hondureños Adelante-Juntos Avancemos (JHA-JA, San Pedro Sula, Honduras) works directly with gangs, especially with those whose members have been deported from the US. By using techniques as diverse as street awareness, the philosophy of the Frankfurt School, and peer education, this project has succeeded in gaining the confidence of some of the most violent gangs in Central America. Through their attempts to decrease the violence of the gangs and drug lords, young Hondurans have been given a different sense of their own identity.
Contact Ernesto Baladares, <jhajahn@yahoo.com>
- Centro Comunitario Salgueiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil) is located in one of the poorest and most violent favelas in Brasil. In this community, children believe that selling or using drugs provides them a solution to their problems with the result that the gangs have become menaces to the community. In spite of the difficulties, CC Salguiero has managed to establish a rapport with the gangs by using a local school teachers who are respected in the community as mediators for peace. At the same time, their Centro Comunitario works to end the drug trafficking through using therapies which address the violence and attempt to give a sense of identity to gang members in addition to conducting drug rehabilitaion programmes (for addiction to hallucinogenics and other drugs).
Contact Maúrico Camilo, <salgueirosg@bol.com.br>
- Asociación Comunitaria Monte Azul (São Paulo, Brasil) has totally transformed a favela (now a middle class community) through education, training and empowering the poor to put pressure on local authorities. This was made possible because of a power vacuum left after a confrontation took place 10 years ago between the drug lords and self-defense patrols in which the former were killed by the latter. Monte Azul moved into this vacuum and now wishes to initiate similar projects in other favelas.
Contact Renate Keller <Renate@monteazul.org.br>
- AIACOM (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil) works to end the violence and revenge that are common in the favelas. They use a “ pedagogía de justicia” (“pedagogy of justice”) in which children learn to listen to each other, to understand their mutual problems and to forgive. AIACOM also offers drama and storytelling workshops to bring children together.
Contact Frei Mauricio <siccons@uninet.com.br>
- CEFOCINE (Guayaquil, Ecuador) trains gang members to critique and produce films and videos. Through their work, they have discovered that when gang members participate in such activities, they begin to construct a different sense of identity for themselves.
Contact Marivel Ruíz, cefocine@gu.pro.ec
- In Colombia, the problem is not just how to work with gangs but also how to work in communities which are either controlled by the guerrillas or by the “autodefensas" (right wing guerrillas). Four programmes which deserve mention are the following. Click on each to study their methodologies:
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