This campaign has now closed
Jorge is one of the few lawyers in Peru who is of African descent. Last month, he accompanied a (white) client to court. When they walked into the court building together, the court clerk immediately assumed that Jorge was the offender. This was not the first time this has happened to Jorge: Afro-descendants living in Latin America today are still considered “second class citizens”. This project will tackle the racism Afro-descendant communities face in their every day life.
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Situation
Afro-descendants are the descendants of the slaves who were brought from Africa to Latin America in the 16th & 17th centuries to work in the local cotton fields and sugar cane plantations. After the abolition of slavery, most ex-slaves settled in the region. They now represent a third of the total population of the continent but make up 50% of the poor: Unlike their White compatriots, Afro-descendants are less likely to complete school, get a job or live in decent conditions. This goes without mentioning the extreme level of racism and discrimination they face in accessing services such as healthcare, the ways that they are represented in the media and the reactions that can occur when they assert their rights. MRG was one of the first organizations to alert the international community of the issues faced by Afro-descendant communities in the 1990s when we published a ground breaking book “Invisible Latin Americans”. Since then, we have been actively monitoring the situation with the support of local Afro-descendant organizations. These partners have recently asked us to help them to develop and implement a large scale project which will aim to raise awareness of the issues faced by Afro-descendants at national, regional and international levels and build the capacities of organizations and communities to demand for a long-lasting improvement of the lives of Afro-descendants. The project, which is about to start, will focus primarily on Peru, Ecuador and Brazil. It will combine training, awareness raising campaigns, research and advocacy for change. Representatives of local Afro-descendant organizations will receive specific training on human and minority rights, advocacy skills and techniques to facilitating a more effective engagement with their governments and communities. They will be given the support to create one of the first Afro-descendant networks at regional level, enabling these organizations to speak with a unified voice. Reports will be published to alert national, regional and international public opinion about the intolerable situation of Afro-descendants and encourage a more coherent and strategic struggle to improve the well being of these communities.