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Asociacion Servicios Educativos Rurales (SER)

Asociación Servicios Educativos Rurales (SER) is a rural development NGO with long standing experience in the areas of water and environmental management, public policy strengthening, community participation and advocacy for better access to justice. Building democratic institutions and strengthening citizenship lie at the core of its mission. Established in 1980, it has its head quarters in Lima and has subsequently opened regional/rural offices in Ayacucho (1995), Cajamarca (2001) and Puno (2004). The first of SER's two major programmes, the one on water and sanitation, is aimed at facilitating sustainable access of rural and peri-urban citizens to potable water and decent sanitation. An important component of this programme lies in building the capacity of the community to manage, administer and technically maintain the installed systems. The second programme, on decentralisation and democratic government, is aimed at access of rural and peri-urban citizens to the state and non-state justice institutions, and at genuine participation of organized and non-organized citizens in social and political processes at the local and regional levels. The grave consequences of the internal armed conflict in the period 1985-2000 have given impulse to another line of work within this governance programme: that of the promotion of reparations to the victims of violence and of facilitating processes of memorizing the experiences of the armed conflict. Along this line, SER works to facilitate public space for dialogue and debate on people's experiences through meetings, expositions, publications and the media. Immediately following the national initiative of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CVR), in 2002 together with some local organisations in Ayacucho, SER established the Yuyarisun Collective which started a process of memory recollection through art works, poetry, songs and narratives. This initiative soon expanded to other regions across the Peruvian Andes, particularly in places with large concentrations of victims of the armed conflict in the departments of Ayacucho and Huancavelica. At the same time, the activities came to cover more specific sections of the populations, such as women and college students. The activities have resulted in many art works, publications, media productions and small local museums in which relevant material is exposed.
The mentioned line of memory recuperation is exactly the area for which Hivos has started to cooperate with SER. This cooperation is part of a larger project of Hivos and the Anna Frank Foundation since 2007, which has been operated in Guatemala and Nicaragua. In Peru, SER has been selected as the most appropiate partner organisation for the project, because of its experience with victims of violence during armed conflict on truth-seeking and memory processes.

Type of organisation	Service organization /non-profit
Sector	Human Rights & Democratisation
Country	Peru
Founded	1980
Hivos partner since	2009

Revealing Memories, 2009-2010

DAC-sectors:	Adult/Youth education (BSS) Human rights
Location:	Lima, Peru
Beneficiary:	children, youth
activity	Itinerant exhibition
Direct outreach	12000 - Policy level/ public opinion
Indirect outreach	50000 - Policy level/ public opinion
activity	Workshops with school teachers
Direct outreach	80 - Intermediary level
Indirect outreach	10000 - Intermediary level
activity	Formation and training of guide groups
Direct outreach	150 - Intermediary level
Indirect outreach	12000 - Policy level/ public opinion
Contract total:	30.000
Contractperiod:	01-01-2010 until 31-03-2010

Description:
The 15 months during project in collaboration with the Anna Frank Foundation (AFF) and Hivos is aimed at youth and adolescents of 15-20 years old in the provinces of Huamanga, La Mar, Huanta and Vilcas Huamán, department of Ayacucho, and in two impoverished peri-urban municipalities in Lima. The youth and adolescents are singled out because memory recollection with them is considered fundamental for building their confidence in the process of shaping their full and active citizenship and theri contribution to a democratic society. Half of the youth in Peru is poor and 17% of them lives in extreme poverty and are easy victims of recruitment by criminal gangs. This is the more true given that many of them suffer from unemployment, discrimination and apathy. Those living in the project areas belong to families who have been broken by the violence during the internal conflict. The added value of the collaboration with AFF lies in the lessons that can be learned from the AFF methodology and the fact that local memories can be placed in the international historical context of the Holocaust. The project provides for a narratives and music competition among adolescents and the formation of youth "guide groups" in each province/municipality who will lead and accompany the memory reconstruction process in their regions. In total, 150 young persons will form the groups. From Guatemala, a youngster who was involved in the AFF-Hivos project in that country will be flown in to assist in the training of the groups. A methodological guide will be produced for the process during the project as well as after it, when the activities of the project will be replicated elsewhere. A series of workshops will be held for school teachers; this and the guide book will help them to deal with memory recollection in the school curriculum. A two weeks during itinerant exposition tours along the five provinces/ municipalities in the secnd half of the project period. The trained youngsters function as guides in the expositions as well. In terms of tangible products, the project will result in a CD with songs and narratives from the competition, the already mentioned guide book as well as a series of publications and audio visual materials on the life and experiences of Anna Frank. The project also counts with a financial contribution from the netherlands Embassy in Lima and from the AFF itself.

Description:

The 15 months during project in collaboration with the Anna Frank Foundation (AFF) and Hivos is aimed at youth and adolescents of 15-20 years old in the provinces of Huamanga, La Mar, Huanta and Vilcas Huamán, department of Ayacucho, and in two impoverished peri-urban municipalities in Lima. The youth and adolescents are singled out because memory recollection with them is considered fundamental for building their confidence in the process of shaping their full and active citizenship and theri contribution to a democratic society. Half of the youth in Peru is poor and 17% of them lives in extreme poverty and are easy victims of recruitment by criminal gangs. This is the more true given that many of them suffer from unemployment, discrimination and apathy. Those living in the project areas belong to families who have been broken by the violence during the internal conflict. The added value of the collaboration with AFF lies in the lessons that can be learned from the AFF methodology and the fact that local memories can be placed in the international historical context of the Holocaust.
The project provides for a narratives and music competition among adolescents and the formation of youth "guide groups" in each province/municipality who will lead and accompany the memory reconstruction process in their regions. In total, 150 young persons will form the groups. From Guatemala, a youngster who was involved in the AFF-Hivos project in that country will be flown in to assist in the training of the groups. A methodological guide will be produced for the process during the project as well as after it, when the activities of the project will be replicated elsewhere. A series of workshops will be held for school teachers; this and the guide book will help them to deal with memory recollection in the school curriculum. A two weeks during itinerant exposition tours along the five provinces/ municipalities in the secnd half of the project period. The trained youngsters function as guides in the expositions as well. In terms of tangible products, the project will result in a CD with songs and narratives from the competition, the already mentioned guide book as well as a series of publications and audio visual materials on the life and experiences of Anna Frank. The project also counts with a financial contribution from the netherlands Embassy in Lima and from the AFF itself.

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