Youth Trip to the School of the Americas Watch Vigil

The School of The Americas(SOA) Watch Vigil is held every year in November. This year, it is being held from November 21-23. Thousands of individuals come together at the gates of the SOA and commemorate martyrs in Latin America who lost their lives; such as the Jesuit priests in El Salvador and thousands of Guatemalan indigenous people due to training of Latin American military battalions trained by the U.S. SOA in Columbus, Georgia. Through our presence at this vigil, Homies Unidos members will learn to be advocates for Human Rights, hear from survivors of torture, and meet courage’s men and women who have been fighting to stop militarization in Central America during the 1980s. They will take part in a panel to speak of their ordeal as unaccompanied minors and the connection of U.S. continued involvement in destabilizing of the region.

Meet Jonathan at the School of the Americas Watch Vigil

These youth also took part of our Joven Noble rites of passage program and the Youth Leadership Training during the summer. They were the main organizer of the Central American Youth Leadership Conference this past September 19th. They are now forming the Central American Youth Council in which they will be working to address issues of Central American youth.

This is Homies Unidos 2nd participation of the vigil; in 2014 we took three youth. We drove back and stopped in different places to speak with community organizer working in labor issues in New Orleans, Immigrant issues in Arizona. Daniela Ojeda, one of the past participants, will be educating the new participants on her experience and will be join in us.
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