During a January training course in Chile, Lutherans listen to Elizabeth Alberto. Her family lives in Gente de Mar, a resettlement camp near Penco, Chile, a fishing community devastated by the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. The Albertos now make their living selling seaweed. EPES work with the community includes a children’s pro- gram that uses storytelling, games and team sports.
Ezequiel
Mandamiento, who coordinates the social min- istry work of 15 Lutheran congrega- tions in Peru, devel- oped a volunteer program around HIV/AIDS.
Lautaro Lopez, Popular Education in Health coordinator in Concepción, Chile, shows Karen Castillo (Guate- mala), Benedicta Aravena (Chile) and Alberto Gonzales (Peru) how to play an EPES board game about HIV/AIDS.
(
www.elca.org/yagm). She’ll use skills learned here in Denver, where she works with migrant families at the Cristo Rey Lutheran Church com- munity center. The learn-by-experiencing meth- odology of the EPES course is one of its most appealing characteristics. At the end of the two weeks, participants developed their own projects to carry out in their countries.
Karen Castillo, coordinator for education programs of the Augustin-
ian Lutheran Church of Guatemala, helps families who have returned to her country from refugee camps in Mexico to rebuild their lives. She called the course “a treasure for my life and work.” Castillo was struck by the many
parallels between her work and EPES programs serving earthquake victims. In both communities, emo- tional and mental health impacts of reintegration are enormous, she said. “The church must use the power of its voice to advocate for public poli- cies that recognize the importance of living with dignity,” she added. María Isabel Castillo from Hual- pén, southern Chile, attended the
course thanks to the sponsorship of the San Pablo congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile. A community health educator trained by EPES, she accompanies 20 families who lost their homes in Chile’s 2010 earthquake and tsunami. At first, she said, “we lacked mate-
rial resources to help these families ... the only thing we could do was help them dig out from under the mud, share their pain and listen. But that’s a big only.” Today, Castillo delivers weekly hot meals and homemade bread. She also organized a knitting circle where women can converse and strategize about their lives.
Psychologist Catalina Zavala works with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile’s shelter for battered women in Santiago. Because of EPES, “I flipped the switch: participation means ‘from the community, for the community,’ ” Zavala said. The results are lasting. Rubí Flores, who attended in 2010 as the representative of the Christian Lutheran Church of Honduras, said, “This is a methodology for liberation, to generate alliances and make an impact on public policy,” she said. “I will use this to work on health issues with youth, children and women, wherever the Lutheran church accompanies its people.”
To learn more about EPES and its training programs, visit
www.epes.cl.
June 2011 37
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