Martín-Baró Fund
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Grant Announcement:
For 2010, The Fund WILL be Accepting
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See Further Information Instructions


Torture Update:
American Psychological Association
Finally Takes a Stand on Torture

By Brad Olson, Dan Aalbers and Ruth Fallenbaum

Since 2006, the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights and its supporters have been confronting the American Psychological Association's tacit approval of the involvement of psychologists in torture and other cruel and unusual treatment in U.S. detention facilities. Many of our readers signed our web-based petition demanding a change in APA policy (see below.)

Finally, the Martín-Baró Fund and other grassroots groups can declare at least partial victory. Last year, a membership referendum campaign led by activists both within and outside the American Psychological Association resulted in a new, clear policy barring psychologists from working in U.S. detention centers that violate the Constitution or international law unless they are working directly for the detainees themselves or for third-party human rights groups representing the interests of detainees…

Read the full article in the Spring,
2009, issue of The Just Word

MBF Petition Campaign
Thanks for your support!

Responding to concern over growing evidence that psychologists and other mental health workers have been involved in interrogations, and in some cases torture, of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, the Martín-Baró Fund launched a petition campaign calling on the American Psychological Association to take concrete action to put an end to these practices.We collected more than 1,000 signatures, which were presented by some of our members to the American Psychological Association's 2006 convention in New Orleans. For more information, see page 5 of the Summer, 2007, issue of The Just Word.

View Petition to APA
View Signatures
View Comments from other Supporters
Torture Resources and Links

Who We Are
The Martín-Baró Fund was established to honor the memory of Father Ignacio Martín-Baró, a Jesuit priest and social psychologist who was murdered in El Salvador in 1989, and to further the goals to which he dedicated his life. Our grants support progressive, grassroots groups throughout the world who are challenging institutional repression and confronting the mental health consequences of violence and injustice in their communities.


Photo from Fortaleza de la Mujer Maya, Chiapas, Mexico,
a project supported by the Fund in 2000, 2001 & 2002

Our Mission & Values
Our Mission
Through grant-making and education, the Martín-Baró Fund fosters psychological well-being, social consciousness, active resistance, and progressive social change in communities affected by institutional violence, repression and social injustice.
Our Values
We believe that the scars of such experiences are deeply seated both in the individual and in society.
We believe in the power of the community collectively to heal these wounds, to move forward, and to create change.
We believe in the importance of developing education and critical awareness about the oppressive policies and practices of the United States and of multinational corporations.
Our Goals

To support innovative grassroots projects that explore the power of the community to foster healing within individuals and communities that are trying to recover from experiences of institutional violence, repression, and social injustice.

To promote education and critical awareness about the psychosocial consequences of structural violence, repression and social injustice on individuals and communities, while educating ourselves and the wider community about the community-based reponses of grantees in their pursuit ot social reparation and a more just and equitable world.
To build collaborative relationships among the Fund, its grantees, and its contributors for mutual education and social change.

Operations
Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights moves operations to the Boston College Center for Human Rights and Internatinal Justice at Boston College.

Supporting the Fund
We are a special project of The Funding Exchange. Contributions to the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund, made through the Funding Exchange, are fully tax-deductible.


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English to Spanish translations
courtesy of Melisa Flores

© 2009, Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health & Human Rights