About us
- Mission.
- History.
- Annual report.
- Publications.
- Organisation.
- Financial .
- Working at.
- Access to Justice Alliance.
- Featured partners.
- Piet Sprengers of ASN Bank.
- Irina Krasovskaya of We Remember.
- Tagbo Agbazue of AICC.
- Mohammed Kowthar of Al-Rahma Network.
- Marie Busck of DIHR.
- Punya Bhandari of Youth Action Nepal.
- Bernice Sam of WILDAF.
- Maco Garavito of Liga Guatemalteca de Higiene Mental.
Maco Garavito of Liga Guatemalteca de Higiene Mental, Guatemala
"For many years already, since the time I spent with the revolutionary movement in Guatemala, I'm very close with the poorest and most vulnerable people of my country. I want to improve their lives. They have so many good things, but they need support. Even when I'm tired mentally and physically of the work, the people I'm doing it for are like vitamins for me. I have to create a dream and believe in it."
Maco Garavito is the director of the Liga Guatemalteca de Higiene Mental, a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) that focuses on the mental health of the vulnerable people in the society. The work especially takes place in the local communities. The Liga has 6 different programmes and within all of these programmes violence is a great issue. "The human relationship is under pressure in Guatemala, because of the war that lasted till far into the nineties and because of the current violence. People can't connect in a normal way anymore, everybody mistrusts each other, nobody cares about the other person's pain. About a small stream of water they argue already. It is very important for Guatemala that the social relationships become healthy, positive and constructive again; that is just as important as economic development."
One of the programmes is called "Todos por el Reencuentro". The Liga helps family members to search for children that disappeared during the civil war (1960-1996). "Due to our work in the local communities we saw the grief of the parents, who didn't know what happened to their child." Aim for human rights is involved in this programme. "Since 3 years Aim helps to organize and give information to the family members of disappeared children. Therefore the family members could found a separate Association with its own juridical entity. The Liga is now also member of the ICAED (International Coalition Against Forced Disappearances)." More than 750 cases of disappearances are being investigated. So far 230 children have been found. A lot of the children have been adopted, also by persons from abroad. Contrary to cases of adults, with children the chance that they are still alive is bigger. That makes the chance of a successful reunion more realistic."
This search isn't easy. "The Guatemalan government has, since they signed the peace accords, the mandate and the funds to investigate these disappearances, but they don't do anything at all. It is not that our work is dangerous, because we purely want to solve the human pain by reunite family members. We don't give a judgement about how the disappearance happened. But there is just now interest from the government or the army to provide more information about the past. That is very frustrating sometimes. But we continue to fight."
Maco studied Psychology and Political Sciences. He was active for years in the revolutionary movement. He worked as an investigator on youth themes (street children, child abuse, child labour) for the organization PAMI and for the research institute AVANCSO. With four other persons in 1998 he breathed new life into the Liga (that exists already since 1952), developing new programmes especially for the rural communities. At the moment he also teaches Anthropology at the University of San Carlos.
