Latin America Month will officially open this Saturday, 12 June from 5pm. Organised by our friends at the Latin America Solidarity Centre, this year's theme will be "Defending the Territory, Defending the Earth".
In recognition of the work of environmental defenders accompanied by PBI around the world, the opening address will feature a talk by Rocío Walkiria, feminist and environmental activist with the Honduran Centre for Community Development - CEHPRODEC. Walkiria will share the current situation of the environmental movement in the country.
We will also hear from Dr Peter Doran, lecturer with Queen's University Belfast as he speaks on the rights of nature and the Environmental Justice Network Ireland, an all-island environmental movement supporting communities and individuals that are engaged in both promoting environmental justice and challenging environmental injustice.
This online event will also feature a miniature theatre on Chilean customs, a Colombian indigenous philharmonic orchestra, and Guatemalan rapper, activist and artist, Rebeca Lane. For more information and registration, click here.
While all events will be free of charge, PBI Ireland has launched a fundraiser to allow our supporters to make donations and help us create similar events in the future.
PBI Honduras: Call for Volunteers
If you are interested in living and working in the field while supporting human rights defenders through accompaniment, training, communications and advocacy, PBI Honduras may be the opportunity for you! The Honduras project is currently looking for volunteers to join their field team and take part in a unique volunteering experience. Volunteers will receive training from the project as part of the selection process in preparation for their time in the field.
More details and the application can be found on the PBI Honduras website. The deadline for submissions is 19 April.
Watch: PBI Ireland Launches New Video Series - Defenders Speak
PBI Ireland is very excited to announce our new video series, Defenders Speak, which gives human rights defenders the opportunity to discuss their work in their own words for an Irish audience.
To celebrate the launch of our new YouTube channel, we have produced two of these videos featuring Esdra “Moro” Sosa, coordinator of the Litos Women’s Group at Arcoiris LGBT Association, Honduras. Check out the videos below for more information!
Defenders Speak: How Arcoiris is Supporting LGBTQI+ Hondurans
In our very first instalment of Defenders Speak, Esdra "Moro" Sosa from the Litos Women's Group of Arcoiris LGBT Association tells us how the LGBTQI+ community in Honduras has fared under the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricanes Eta and Iota. Moro describes what Arcoiris is doing to help their community during this time of crisis.
Defenders Speak: The Legal Battle for Equality in Honduras
In this instalment of Defenders Speak, Esdra "Moro" Sosa from Arcoiris LGBT Association returns to tell us about her organisation's struggle to gain legal recognition for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community and other marginalised groups in Honduras.
Watch: The People Vs The Pandemic Public Event
If you missed our event last November, you’re in luck! We have just uploaded a recording of the event to our new YouTube channel.
In the video below you will hear from two human rights defenders on how marginalised communities have organised to protect themselves from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
From Honduras, we hear from Esdra "Moro" Sosa, Coordinator of the Litos Women's Group at Arcoiris LGBT Association on the effects of Hurricanes Eta and Iota on the Central American country, and their plans for the future.
From Colombia, Luis Miguel shares how the San José de Apartadó Peace Community has responded to the pandemic by banding together and relying on ties of solidarity and mutual aid.
PBI Ireland Fundraising Event: The People Vs. The Pandemic
PBI Event: Blood of the Earth - Water defenders in Central America - Webinar
This webinar is free of charge, but please register to secure your place here.
Central America and Mexico are some of the most vulnerable places on the planet to the effects of climate change. Nevertheless, they are also home to massive megaprojects that threaten our planet’s most valuable resource – water.
In 2019, amid an historic drought, a documentary film crew travelled to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to allow water defenders to tell their stories of life, hope, and resistance. From dried riverbeds in Honduras and prisons in Guatemala, to communities under attack in Southern Mexico, their stories speak to the ferocity of megaprojects in their search for profits.
Participants in this webinar will receive a private link to watch this documentary before its official release, and listen to two human rights defenders who have accompanied these communities in their struggle.
We are delighted to be joined by two speakers from Latin America for this webinar:
Diana Pérez is a member of the Territorial Defence Area with the Mexican Institute for Community Development (IMDEC A.C.). IMDEC is an independent, autonomous Mexican civil society organisation, founded in Guadalajara, Jalisco in 1963. Its prime objective is supporting the defence of land and common goods, the refounding of democracy, and the full guarantee of human rights through education and popular education. IMDEC carries out its work accompanying processes directly in territories together with communities, citizens’ groups, civil society organisations and social movements as trainers and educators through national and Latin American political education programmes.
Julio González is an ecologist with Colectivo Madreselva, an activist group committed to the defence of nature from a political and social perspective. MadreSelva supports accompaniment proposals from populations who take up the defence of natural goods or who resist projects that damage the balance of nature and ecological processes. The collective strategically approaches the topic of ecology under the following thematic areas: forests and natural goods, the human right to water, hydroelectric projects, mining, defence of territory, ecological risk management, “buen vivir” and citizen participation.
This webinar will be chaired by PBI Ireland and co-organised by the Latin America Solidarity Centre (LASC). The presenters will be speaking in Spanish, and we will have simultaneous or consecutive interpretation into English (depending on technology).