This is a brief post to flag up examples of media coverage for the work of two development organisations who have been working in Guatemala in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan in October 2005.

The first example is from CAFOD who have been involved in various projects through partners on the ground in Guatemala. This is an article published in the Tablet is from CAFOD's Fiona Callister. She makes the interesting point that although here the disaster was forgotten quickly, solidarity has been impressively strong in Guatemala itself crossing the religious divide between Catholics and Protestants.

"For example in the diocese of Jalapa, which contains San Carlos, desperately poor parishioners collected an impressive $20,000 (£11,500) to help those affected by Stan. Even more remarkably, the decision was taken that, although their diocese had been brought to its knees by the hurricane, they would donate the money to another parish which they considered had been worse hit.

This solidarity has been a strong feature of the disaster response, with Churches organising themselves almost immediately to take it in turns to feed those who had lost everything. So the Pentecostal Church would find 100 eggs for breakfast, then the Catholic Church would provide lunch in the shelters and dinner would come courtesy of the Evangelicals.

Miguel Marroquin, the director of Cafod partner FGER Nahuala community radio, which has helped distribute blankets and food, said: “People who are already poor and have suffered themselves have responded one hundred per cent. It is very humbling and inspiring. There is a great sense of solidarity and unity. The age-old religious divisions have been transformed and everyone is pulling together. This is something we must build on.” "

Fiona Callister mentions CAFOD's lenten fundraising- one example is St Margaret's Church, Richmond, in the UK already mentioned on this blog last month. For more information on their 26th March event, see this post.

The other example is an article that appeared in AlertNet on the work of World Emergency Relief in supporting the rebuilding of houses in affected areas of Guatemala.

"WER has released funds to local partner agency, Cosecha Trust, to purchase land and materials to rebuild houses for families who were left homeless in the aftermath of the disaster. These new homes will provide housing for over 100 people in the town of Tecpan."

The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is taking place in London 15th-25th March and brings together a collection of very interesting films this year. OneWorld.net resumes the festival here.

The full film schedule: here.

The festival includes the premiere of Killer's Paradise on the issue of violence against women in Guatemala. In particular, the film documents the story of Claudina Isabel Velasquez, a 19 year-old student, who was found dead in August 2005. Claudina's case was supported by Amnesty International as part of its campaign against violence against women.

Killer's Paradise is to be shown: Monday, 20th March at 6pm at the Ritzy.

Brixton Oval, Coldharbour Lane
Brixton, London SW2 1JG
box office: 0870 7550 062
www.picturehouses.co.uk

Tickets cost £6.75 and include the following film, "How To Plan A Revolution". You can book online here. Both films are distributed by BBC Worldwide TV.

Here's the film's synopsis on the HRW film festival website:

"In this powerful film, the award-winning team of Olenka Frenkiel and Giselle Portenier (Murder in Purdah, Israel’s Secret Weapon) document the story of the brutal killings of women in Guatemala. Since 1999, more than 2,000 women have been murdered there, with the numbers rising every year. In 2005 alone, 640 women, nearly two a day, were killed. That’s one woman in every twelve thousand murdered last year, almost ten times as many, per capita, as in Britain.

And in Guatemala, the murders are rarely investigated. Few statistics are kept, details rarely are logged, potential forensic evidence is often ignored or contaminated, so the killers invariably go free and no one, not even the country’s president, has any idea who they are or why so many women are murdered.

The answer, at least in part, is the failure of Guatemalan authorities to pursue justice for perpetrators of abuses during a civil war which killed 200,000 people. Three generations of killers have gone free; though the country is trying to show it has changed, old habits die hard.

KILLER’S PARADISE documents the story of Claudina Isabel Velasquez, a 19 year old law student murdered in summer 2005, as her family urges the authorities to investigate who killed her".