Amicus Foundation -- Our Partners -- HIJOS




While Europe still slumbered in the midst of the Dark Ages, the Mayan people had charted the heavens, evolved the only true writing system native to the Americas and were masters of mathematics and calendrics. They were able to construct vast cities with an astonishing degree of architectural perfection and variety.

CEMAS •
HIJOS •
Mayalan •
Women Facilitators of Nuevo Horizonte •
Peten Alliance for Life and Peace •

HIJOS

Sons and Daughters for Identity, Justice, and Remembrance Against Silence (H.I.J.O.S. Hijos y Hijas por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio) is a collective of young people who were children when their family members were disappeared, killed or massacred during Guatemala's civil war. In 1999, they joined together to form HIJOS Guatemala, five years after the first HIJOS group was formed in Argentina, in order to establish the truth about what happened and seek justice.

Members of HIJOS pose with children
of survivors of the Rio Negro massacre.
They are in front of a mural they
designed to commemorate
the massacre, which happened in 1982.

Before Guatemala's 36-year war formally ended with the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords, approximately 200,000 people were extra-judicially executed or ''disappeared'' at the hands of Guatemalan state forces. HIJOS is committed to vindicating the thousands of victims fallen to the military practices in Guatemala and utilizes alternative educational tools to teach youth about this history so they can understand today's struggle for social justice.

HIJOS Guatemala members convey their message through presentations, art therapy, street art, poetry, music, photography, documentaries, music festivals, publications, and popular theater, through which they hope to create a culture of awareness and promote the struggle for social justice.