One legacy among many: The Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for mental health and human rights at 21.

Abstract

One of the many responses to acts of terror at the University of Central American Jose Simeon Canas on November 16, 1989, which included the brutal assassination of my colleague and friend Ignacio Martin-Baro, was the establishment of The Ignacio MartinBaro Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights. Colleagues in North America asked themselves what they—psychological researchers, teachers and practitioners in the North, and citizens of countries that regularly support oppressive forces in the majority world— had to contribute to the healing of local survivors after such gross violations of human rights. The Fund emerged as a modest answer to our outrage and loss, reflecting one response to Martin-Baro’s challenge that a liberation psychology include the construction of “a new person in a new society.” This article reflects upon 21 years of fundraising, grant making, education, and advocacy by those who have sustained the Martin-Baro Fund, seeking to illuminate key elements of community-based psychological praxis through selected projects supported by the Fund. Including some key contributions from MartinBaro’s writings, it explores selected ideas toward the praxis of a liberatory psychology in contexts of armed conflict—and concludes with a discussion of the limitations that continue to challenge the Fund.