Peru: Iliana Estabridis
As an educator, organizer, and human rights activist, Iliana Estabridis has spent a lifetime working with others for social justice in her native Peru. At Project Counselling Service, Inter Pares' long-time counterpart, Iliana works with indigenous women and men in the Andean high-lands to help address the consequences of twenty years of internal war, and the ongoing racism and exclusion at its roots.
As a young woman in the educational system, struggling to keep indigenous children in school, Iliana discovered the power of people working together. She promoted networks of parents, teachers and community leaders to develop bilingual curricula, and to identify and give special attention to children at risk. "Creativity blooms when people come together to share their ideas," Iliana says.
Today, Iliana sees this same creative energy among indigenous women and men as they organize to hold their governments accountable to all the people of Peru, regardless of ethnicity. She helped develop a program with local citizens' groups, the highland university, and the regional government to provide training for mayors in the administration of local government and participatory budgets. She linked national human rights organizations with local citizens' organizations and highland regional governments to develop reparations programs for people whose lives were destroyed by the war. Now, Iliana is working with a network of women who suffered torture and sexual abuse during the war to obtain access to health care and legal assistance.
Iliana knows that her dream of a diverse society of mutual respect will be the product of many people working together - weaving their actions into the tapestry of a new world.
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