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A Voice For the Voiceless

The Advocacy Project helps marginalized communities to tell their story, claim their rights and produce social change. We recruit graduate students to volunteer as Peace Fellows with partners.

The Impact of Service "Speaking with locals and living in a country is the best way to learn about the real lives of citizens, not just the stories in the mainstream media. I will be more critical of what I read as a result of this experience. I also feel even more grateful for my education, and I feel a stronger responsibility to assist others who do not have resources or access to opportunities in their communities." Maria Skouras (New York University) volunteered in 2011 as a Peace Fellow for eHomemakers in Malaysia. For more 2011 feedback click here.

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Partner Campaigns > Advocacy Quilting > Rio Negro Memoria... > The Memorial Quilt > The Weavers > Carmen Sanchez Chen

Carmen Sanchez Chen

Like all survivors from the Río Negro massacres, Carmen suffered a debilitating series of losses in 1982. On Februrary 13, 1982, her father, sister and nephew were tortured and brutally killed in the massacres that occurred both in the village of Xococ. On March 13, 1982, her mother, two sisters and several cousins were murdered at Pak’oxom, a site above her former home in Río Negro while she was buying sugar in a nearby village shop. On May 14, 1982, her three year-old son, Manuel Chen Sanchez, was kidnapped and disappeared from the settlement of Los Encuentros by helicopter. He has never been found. During the attack, Carmen was washing clothes in the Salama River while her son, Maneul, was with his grandmother.

She was forced to flee into the mountains in nothing but her underwear, where she lived with her husband for over a year before moving to the resettlement village of Pacux in 1983.        

Once there, she was unable to leave the village without Army permission for more than a year. After surviving two genocidal attacks by the Guatemalan Army and PAC patrols, she now lives in Pacux with her husband, Bernardo Chen Chen, and their extended family of seven children and numerous grandchildren. Carmen weaves belts and small textiles to sell in the central market in Rabinal, and is president of the Pacux artisans’ cooperative.

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