The Association of Relatives of Detained-Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA), will be receiving their third and final grant from the Martín-Baró Fund. FAMDEGUA now has over 23 years of experience supporting and accompanying members of the Guatemalan Mayan population whom have been affected by regional poverty and migration, state violence, and the unresolved impact of the nation’s internal armed conflict. In the grant cycle of 2017-2018, FAMDEGUA expanded the workshops to include participants from the municipality of Panzas in Alta Verapaz. Through the workshops, the organization was able to specifically address the participants’ experiences of violence during armed conflict by focusing on psychosocial support and human rights education. In the workshops, male and female participants were able to express that although they do not have everything necessary to live or enjoy stable life conditions, they have now understood that not forgetting lived events does not mean that they should stop struggling for access to justice, truth, and dignified reparation. Their struggle signifies political, social, and cultural action which does have the power to strengthen their family and community. 

In this third year of funding, FAMDEGUA plans to implement a Mental Health and Human Rights program for witness and relatives of victims. This will consist in the development of home visits, socialization meetings, and continuing the workshops on mental health and human rights. The workshops are set to be directed towards women of rural areas of Mayan or Mestizo descent; this population is who has been mostly affected during the internal armed conflict in Guatemala. Creating a balance between family members and their socio-cultural environment is another goal that FAMDEGUA wants to see accomplished as it directly affects the mental health of the participants.