Loewenstern Journal entry #1

Although I have been volunteering fifteen hours a week for the past four months, this week school will end and my real work will begin and my fellowship will begin. In many ways, the past four months served as a preparation time, a time in which I absorbed the issues, the language, the culture and the work of Las Libres. This coming month I will use that knowledge to carry out my Loewenstern project and hopefully help this organization to achieve its greater goals.


Before I arrived in January, I imagined myself leading workshops on sexual health in rural communities, using my Spanish to teach about contraception, sexual rights and resources. After spending time in this community and the surrounding communities I realize that would be a waste of my time and theirs. To teach on such taboo subjects in a foreign language, as a young, American girl to a group of women, mostly mothers, between the ages of 18 and 60, would be little more than a joke. Gaining the trust and respect of those women, learning their stories and their culture, would be a much greater task that 6 months could afford me and would be much better left to the women they already trust, the workers at Las Libres. Realizing this I felt rather discouraged, not sure of how I could best contribute to this organization such that both the organization and I would benefit.


When I spoke with Verónica, the chair of the organization, about my dilemma she gave me the perfect task, a final project that aligns with all of my goals in coming here. Las Libres is about to embark on a huge campaign to raise money for the resources they need to help the women we work with in prison. In the state of Guanajuato, eight women have been imprisoned because of illegal abortions or because of alleged abortions; upon delivering still-born children the doctors accused them of intentionally “murdering their fetus.” Because these women are poor, with little education and no knowledge of the legal system in Mexico, they had no means of defending themselves against these accusations and are now imprisoned because of crimes they didn’t commit. Instead of being tried under abortion laws, these women were penalized for homicide and will spend between 15-40 years in prison instead of the normal abortion sentence of 1-3. On top if the injustice in their incarceration and excessive punishments, some of these women were rape victims. The politicians in Guanajuato design the laws which punished these women to criminalize the most vulnerable, those denied an education, denied opportunities to change their social status, and denied a just trial. It is another issue that wraps into the system of oppression which maintains the wealthiest classes here and exploits the ignorance of the poor.


We visit these women every Thursday, learning their stories and helping them to enjoy the short time we are there as much as possible. In our office, the lawyers at Las Libres have gone through their files, studied their cases and prepared to try to appeal their cases to a higher federal court in hopes of lowering their sentences and possibly freeing some of the women. This summer Las Libres will begin to gather the funds to pay for this gigantic process. Verónica gave me and two other volunteers from the US the task of writing grants to US donors, of creating a fundraising packet to distribute to English speakers, and of writing their yearly bulletin. As none of the women in Las Libres speak English, this is an ideal way in which I can best contribute. To write these grant applications, I will study each of the women’s cases and meet with them individually, learning their stories and conducting interviews which Verónica helps me prepare. Outside of the personal interactions, the other volunteers and I will formally study the laws in Guanajuato and the history of issues related to abortion rights in Guanajuato and Mexico. This job feels a bit daunting, but manageable and realistic for my last month working here and I couldn’t be more excited.


Lastly, if you didn’t see my last e-mail there is a very exciting article in More Magazine that includes my boss and the Executive Chair of Las Libres, Verónica Cruz. Her story is on page 8, and I translated the interview used to write the piece.
http://www.more.com/2050/22144-the-most-dangerous-women-in

If this link doesn’t work you can find the article if you google “More Magazine Veronica Cruz.”