Group Memories: My Pain, Our Hope

This book is the result of years of work by the Centro de Atención Psicosocial (CAPS) with populations affected by the internal armed conflict that Peru experienced between 1980 and 2000. The experiences we present were developed with organizations and groups in urban-marginal areas of Lima and in the cities of Huánuco and Chimbote. In them, speech and listening were prioritized, and efforts were made to promote recovery from psychological aftereffects, personal and group development, the exercise of citizenship, and the restoration of dignity as persons. These experiences began in the context of the authoritarian government of Alberto Fujimori, in which the armed forces confronted the subversive movements Sendero Luminoso and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru. During the years of political violence, the fundamental rights to life and integrity of Peruvian men and women were violated. Violence struck especially rural inhabitants, who suffered the death and disappearance of family members, torture, the massacre of residents of their localities, the destruction and loss of their homes and means of survival, and subsequent displacement to the peripheral areas of cities. (Excerpt from the preface).