THE MARJORIE KOVLER CENTER
FOR THE TREATMENT OF SURVIVORS OF TORTURE
Chicago, Illinois
"(Survivors of torture) are left with fear, guilt, humiliation, helplessness, shame, nightmares, flashbacks, hideous memories. This is the survivor's world, a world we wish to flee.... At the Marjorie Kovler Center (for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture), we are lifted when we fall, cared for in our brokenness, empowered to take the most daring of all risks -- to live.... Kovler recognizes something that we believed had been lost forever: the inner strength that our torturers and all their allies have not destroyed. It was at Kovler that I, and countless others, first came to see ourselves not as victims but as survivors...."
Recently The Kovler Center has started raising funds to establish a new torture treatment center in
Momostenango, Guatemala.
Momostenango
is located in the Department of Totonicapan, in the Guatemalan
highlands. The population is 94% Mayan (mostly Quiche
speakers), many of whom have been tortured, or have survived the
disappearance and execution of relatives, during the civil war.
Momostenango is also home to many displaced persons from neighboring regions of the highlands.
The Atanasio Tzul Community Health Center in
Momostenango
is a non-governmental, non-profit hospital, the largest in the
district, which provides health care for impoverished Guatemalans,
regardless of their ability to pay. It also has an active program
to train and place rural Mayan community health nurses. The new
project will establish the first torture treatment program in Guatemala
to integrate rural primary health care with secondary medical and
mental health services at a hospital, enabling torture survivors to get
needed medical and mental health assistance. To this end the
health center will hire a physician, psychologist and social worker to
help allieviate some of the grief, loss and injury caused in part by
U.S. assistance to the Guatemalan military. The Kovler Center is
providing training as well as technical, management and fundraising
assistance to help the new program become established.
Two recent human rights reports regarding the civil war in Guatemala --
both the 1998 archdiocesan "Nunca Mas!" document and the 1999 U.N.
Truth Commission Report -- have cited numerous graduates of the U.S.
Army School of the Americas (SOA) as perpetrators of war crimes against
civilians. Undoubtedly many in Momostenango need to heal from
violence which has issued directly or indirectly from SOA training.
All funds raised through "A Matter of Heart: Artists for Human Rights in Latin America" supported this innovative program in Momostenango.
THE MARJORIE KOVLER CENTER
FOR THE TREATMENT OF SURVIVORS OF TORTURE
4750 N. Sheridan # 300
Chicago, IL 60640773-751-4069
Click on The Marjorie Kovler Center,
under 'Health Care', at Heartland Alliance.Click Momostenango for more information regarding the project.
More information is available from the
International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.