IF 160 Sunflower Lane Watsonville, CA 95076 Phone: 831-724-4108
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page last updated 2-27-2014
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Upcoming Fundraising Events and Activities
Saturday, March 15, St Patrick's Day Dinner to support IF and its projects, 7:00 pm at IF, 160 Sunflower Lane, Watsonville, CA 95076
Bill Cane and the Old Crew will be cooking a multi course
“Irish” Mediterranean Gourmet Meal
$35.00-50.00 Sliding Scale Please RSVP by 3/13
831-724-4108 IF office or Susan Mahan cell 831-320-6422
If preferred, please indicate a vegetarian meal
Click to make reservation by email for March 15
Bill Cane and the Old Crew will be cooking a multi course
“Irish” Mediterranean Gourmet Meal
$35.00-50.00 Sliding Scale Please RSVP by 3/13
831-724-4108 IF office or Susan Mahan cell 831-320-6422
If preferred, please indicate a vegetarian meal
Click to make reservation by email for March 15
About IF
IF is a nonprofit humanitarian, educational and social change organization located in the Santa Cruz, CA, area. We are a community of friends seeking hopeful alternatives to the violence, greed and destructiveness of our world. more about IF's history and mission
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IF Fiscal Sponsorships
IF offers Fiscal Sponsorships to qualified groups to facilitate their fundraising.
more information about Fiscal Sponsorships |
Information on some of IF's supported projects
Supporting Active Nonviolence in Mexico:
On the Frontlines with Pietro Ameglio
IF is raising funds to support the crucial work of Pietro Ameglio, who for decades has promoted active nonviolence in Mexico and across Latin America. An activist, popular educator, university lecturer, and author, Pietro is a co-founder and leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) that emerged in 2011 to challenge drug-war violence, increasing militarization, and human rights violations in Mexico. His nonviolence education programs are in constant demand across Mexico, and he has helped organize and lead numerous nonviolent direct action campaigns.
He is a co-founder (1987) and leader of Servicio Paz y Justicia (Peace and Justice Service/SERPAJ) in Mexico. SERPAJ is a Latin American network working in 13 countries to promote human rights, social justice and nonviolent culture and struggle. Your contributions make possible the modest stipend that allows Pietro to dedicate himself to the nonviolence education and organizing work. more information on Pietro
On the Frontlines with Pietro Ameglio
IF is raising funds to support the crucial work of Pietro Ameglio, who for decades has promoted active nonviolence in Mexico and across Latin America. An activist, popular educator, university lecturer, and author, Pietro is a co-founder and leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) that emerged in 2011 to challenge drug-war violence, increasing militarization, and human rights violations in Mexico. His nonviolence education programs are in constant demand across Mexico, and he has helped organize and lead numerous nonviolent direct action campaigns.
He is a co-founder (1987) and leader of Servicio Paz y Justicia (Peace and Justice Service/SERPAJ) in Mexico. SERPAJ is a Latin American network working in 13 countries to promote human rights, social justice and nonviolent culture and struggle. Your contributions make possible the modest stipend that allows Pietro to dedicate himself to the nonviolence education and organizing work. more information on Pietro
Report from Pietro Ameglio and the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity
(November 29, 2013) Pietro Ameglio continues to keep a very busy schedule as a nonviolence educator and organizer in Mexico. In the following year-end report, he describes a number of the projects he has worked on this year, and some significant victories. But the bulk of the report is a sober analysis of the deteriorating situation in Mexico amid stunning levels of violence and the hard choices it poses for those who embrace active nonviolence as the surest way of building peace on a foundation of justice. If reading this stirs some reflections in you, we would be pleased if you would share them with us, at: if.integrities@gmail.com
Dear Friends,
For any report or analysis, we need to remember that Mexico is a territory marked throughout by acts of war, albeit not with the same form and intensity in each region. Nowhere can anyone go out on the street or to work without worrying. Nor is any campesino community secure from the threat of being stripped of its natural resources for the benefit of transnational corporations. This war has at least three central characteristics: it is a civil war; it is of massive extermination; and it is of selective extermination. Please let me explain ...
continue Pietro's update letter on Mexico Nonviolence Movement
(November 29, 2013) Pietro Ameglio continues to keep a very busy schedule as a nonviolence educator and organizer in Mexico. In the following year-end report, he describes a number of the projects he has worked on this year, and some significant victories. But the bulk of the report is a sober analysis of the deteriorating situation in Mexico amid stunning levels of violence and the hard choices it poses for those who embrace active nonviolence as the surest way of building peace on a foundation of justice. If reading this stirs some reflections in you, we would be pleased if you would share them with us, at: if.integrities@gmail.com
Dear Friends,
For any report or analysis, we need to remember that Mexico is a territory marked throughout by acts of war, albeit not with the same form and intensity in each region. Nowhere can anyone go out on the street or to work without worrying. Nor is any campesino community secure from the threat of being stripped of its natural resources for the benefit of transnational corporations. This war has at least three central characteristics: it is a civil war; it is of massive extermination; and it is of selective extermination. Please let me explain ...
continue Pietro's update letter on Mexico Nonviolence Movement
Update on Sergio Castro/Yok Chij
(January 2014)
For over 45 years Sergio Castro (Yok Chij) has been working within the indigenous Mayan communities of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Sergio spends most of his time providing medical and wound care to burn victims, and this work is the subject of an inspiring documentary film, El Andalon.
(See Trailer http://veremosproductions.com/el-andalon-2/)
We recently received an annual update on Don Sergio's project activities in 2013 from Mary Murrel, Yok Chij's finance person in Mexico. http://sergiocastrosc.blogspot.mx
During 2013 Sergio Castro treated an average of 24 patients a week needing wound care. He works six days a week so he typically has 132 patient visits each week. Some of the patients come to his clinic in San Cristobal for treatment in the evenings when Sr. Sergio has returned from his patients living in villages outside of town.
In 2013 he treated approximately 1,248 patients. The health care system in Chiapas (and Mexico in general) does not provide free wound care services. Today there is only one burn center in all of Mexico and it is located in Mexico City. As a result patients with serious burns or ulcers have nowhere to turn for help. Sergio Castro has filled this void by caring for patients for free, often seeing them every day for a month or more to change their bandages and give them encouragement.
In early 2013 Sr. Castro also completed a clean water system for storing water in the village of Cruz Quemada. And in the second half of 2013 he began work on a much larger water system which will service over 100 families in the community of Tzajal Chij. The first stage required work for improving the well, a large storage facility and pipes to distribute the water. By early December the well improvements were completed. Additional tanks and a larger network of pipes are planned for 2014.
Sergio’s work with water systems is critical for improving the health of all the inhabitants in village and is especially important for very young children. Tzajal Chij has 175 families and given that the families are large, it is fair to estimate the number of people benefiting from the well improvement is over 1,000.
(January 2014)
For over 45 years Sergio Castro (Yok Chij) has been working within the indigenous Mayan communities of San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Sergio spends most of his time providing medical and wound care to burn victims, and this work is the subject of an inspiring documentary film, El Andalon.
(See Trailer http://veremosproductions.com/el-andalon-2/)
We recently received an annual update on Don Sergio's project activities in 2013 from Mary Murrel, Yok Chij's finance person in Mexico. http://sergiocastrosc.blogspot.mx
During 2013 Sergio Castro treated an average of 24 patients a week needing wound care. He works six days a week so he typically has 132 patient visits each week. Some of the patients come to his clinic in San Cristobal for treatment in the evenings when Sr. Sergio has returned from his patients living in villages outside of town.
In 2013 he treated approximately 1,248 patients. The health care system in Chiapas (and Mexico in general) does not provide free wound care services. Today there is only one burn center in all of Mexico and it is located in Mexico City. As a result patients with serious burns or ulcers have nowhere to turn for help. Sergio Castro has filled this void by caring for patients for free, often seeing them every day for a month or more to change their bandages and give them encouragement.
In early 2013 Sr. Castro also completed a clean water system for storing water in the village of Cruz Quemada. And in the second half of 2013 he began work on a much larger water system which will service over 100 families in the community of Tzajal Chij. The first stage required work for improving the well, a large storage facility and pipes to distribute the water. By early December the well improvements were completed. Additional tanks and a larger network of pipes are planned for 2014.
Sergio’s work with water systems is critical for improving the health of all the inhabitants in village and is especially important for very young children. Tzajal Chij has 175 families and given that the families are large, it is fair to estimate the number of people benefiting from the well improvement is over 1,000.
Sergio at the school in Cruz Quemada
Sergio also improved the entrance for the toilets at the local school in Cruz Quemada and helped to complete two classrooms that were partially completed but were not being used because they needed flooring and windows.
In Mexico the government will provide a teacher for public school classes only when an adequate school room has been built by the community. So the completion of the classrooms in Cruz Quemada (originally he worked on the 5th grade classroom but he decided to complete the kindergarten classroom as well) made it possible for approximately 60 children to attend school.
Mary emphasized the importance of the funds that Sergio has received through IF for some of Sergio's clients who are most in need. The funds provided through IF during 2013 were used to pay the costs of rent, utilities and maintenance of Sergio’s clinic and museum; medical supplies; and transportation costs to visit patients in the local villages who are unable to come to the clinic. read more about Don Sergio's work in Chiapas, Mexico
(New York Time article August 2013)
Sergio and his work in Chiapas was the focus of a New York Times article on August 14. The online article also includes a short video and slide show. To access the article click on this link "In Mexico, a Healer Who Asks Nothing in Return".
In Mexico the government will provide a teacher for public school classes only when an adequate school room has been built by the community. So the completion of the classrooms in Cruz Quemada (originally he worked on the 5th grade classroom but he decided to complete the kindergarten classroom as well) made it possible for approximately 60 children to attend school.
Mary emphasized the importance of the funds that Sergio has received through IF for some of Sergio's clients who are most in need. The funds provided through IF during 2013 were used to pay the costs of rent, utilities and maintenance of Sergio’s clinic and museum; medical supplies; and transportation costs to visit patients in the local villages who are unable to come to the clinic. read more about Don Sergio's work in Chiapas, Mexico
(New York Time article August 2013)
Sergio and his work in Chiapas was the focus of a New York Times article on August 14. The online article also includes a short video and slide show. To access the article click on this link "In Mexico, a Healer Who Asks Nothing in Return".
