She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
She agrees with Martin Luther King Jr’s sentence: ‘We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends’.
Maria Reinat-Pumarejo has played a key role in ending the use by the USA of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico, as a military base. Her world view of peace and justice has energized and empowered working-class women to uproot racism and sexism. In 1992, her struggle against racism prompted her to cofound the Institute for Latino Empowerment (ILE). In 1995, in collaboration with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, ILE extended its efforts to include white people and other people of color in its mission, resulting in the Undoing Racism Organizing Collective in the Northeast. (Read all on 1000peacewomen 2005).
Maria Reinat-Pumarejo – Puerto Rico
She works for the Institute for Latino Empowerment ILE *,
for the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond,
and for the East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network against Militarism.
* has no own website, but is mentionned on others, like these: on: Haarlem World News; on: [AAACE-NLA] school segregation – Anecdotes; on: the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, on: Leadership & Empowerment Institute; and on: RESIST, Guide to Technical Assistance; etc. etc.
Nearly 30 people from various community organizations in Rhode Island attended a two and a half-day training on “Undoing Racism” in mid-July. Three trainers from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a New Orleans-based anti-racism group, conducted the training: Dwight Mizoguchi, Maria Reinat-Pumarejo and Dr. Kimberley Richards. (full text).
Vieques, Puerto Rico. Today, August 28, 2000, a group of graphic artists and actors entered the restricted zone of the US Navy on Vieques. The artists performed a theatrical-pictoral play titled: I BELIEVE IN VIEQUES. They proclaimed the fundamental importance of the landscape, which for sixty years the US Navy has been destroying with their war practices. This distruction has caused grave damages, not only to the landscape but also to the mental, physical and spiritual health of the people of Vieques. The artists painted a spectacular human mural in which they portrayed the landscape of the Isla Nena (Baby Island-Vieques) that proclaimed, « from the esthetic point of view the landscape has been, and will be a vital source of inspiration of artistic creation. » The artists and actors formed two groups: one that entered the restricted area in a civil disobedience act, and another group providing support on the outside. The support group, besides presenting a mural similar to the Vieques landscape, showed another mural that was an adaptaption of the world famous painting by Picaso, GUERNICA, to dramatize the serious situation of the Navy presence on Vieques. (full text).
Maria I. Reinat-Pumarejo is co-director, organizer and trainer of ile: Institute for Latino Empowerment, an organization committed to anti-oppression organizing in Puerto Rico and the US, which she co-founded in 1992. Maria has been organizing against racism and other forms of oppression since the early 1980’s. Her passion, conviction, and vision are matched by her skill and knowledge in areas that include: history, cultural studies, counseling psychology, spirituality, healing arts, transformative education, and organizational development. Maria is also a Core Trainer with The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, based in New Orleans, LA. She works closely with women’s organizations in Puerto Rico, the US, and internationally to support and joining the leadership of other women of color. She is a member of the East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network Against Militarism and speaks frequently to denounce the globalization of the “culture of imposition” in local, national and international forums. Maria worked as Youth Program Coordination of the Peace Development Fund, a progressive national foundation, where she supported efforts across the US to teach young people about dismantling racism, sexism, ageism, and militarism, and to promote youth empowerment. She also worked in a number of key roles at Casa Latina, a Latino community organization in Northampton, MA. Her anti-racism work extends to Puerto Rico, her native land, through workshops organizational development interventions with grassroots organizations and anti-racist community organizing efforts throughout the Island. Her commitment to end militarism and colonialism has included civil disobedience actions to oppose the U.S. Navy’s presence in Vieques. (The People’s Institute).
links:
Messages on this page of yahoo.groups;
Spiritual Activism: Claiming the Poetry and Ideology of a Liberation Spirituality, a 30 pages pdf text;
Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques;
ACLU.