MADRE Programs in Mexico

MADRE and K'inal Antzetik

In 1996, MADRE began working with K'inal Antzetik, an organization of Indigenous women in Chiapas. Since then, MADRE has worked with K'inal Antzetik to:

• Provide reproductive health workshops for women who have little or no access to formal health care, and skills training to enable women to participate in the leadership of their communities. Deliver emergency relief for the survivors of the 1997 massacre in Acteal, in which 45 unarmed Indigenous women and men were killed by paramilitaries.
• Provide legal expertise and witness protection in a human rights case against the Mexican Federal police.
• Offer Training for Change, which prepares Indigenous women to participate effectively in politics, fighting for access to health care, justice and, ultimately, the creation of an autonomous government. The program includes an exchange between Indigenous women activists from MADRE's international network.
• Bring an Indigenous woman activist from Chiapas to New York to participate in the Beijing+10 Conference, working to ensure that the voices of Indigenous women are heard at the international level.

MADRE and ELIGE

In 2001 MADRE began working with ELIGE, a youth-led organization in Mexico City that focuses on sexual rights and reproductive rights, to increase the participation of young women in the international human rights arena. MADRE supported ELIGE members as they attended the Beijing + 5 Conference on women's human rights, the Cairo + 5 Conference on Population and Development and the World Conference Against Racism. With MADRE's support, the young people of ELIGE brought sexual rights and the rights of young people to the forefront of official discussions at the international level. In Spring 2005, MADRE is continuing this work by helping to bring two young women from ELIGE to New York City to participate in the Beijing+10 Conference.

MADRE is also supporting a national forum on abuses against Mexico's youth, with a particular focus on violence against youth, youth rights, institutional violence and police brutality.