Human Rights and Humanitarian Action

Enhancing the study and practice of Catholic peacebuilding.

100 Hesburgh Center
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA

574.631.9370 phone
574.631.6973 fax

cpn@nd.edu

"The CPN is a much-needed way to support the courageous and mostly unheralded efforts of the Church to build peace in war-torn countries from Central Africa to Southern Asia."

Bishop John Ricard
Chairman, U.S. Bishops' International Policy Committee

"The CPN is a space of exchange, encounter and discovery where we help each other understand our peace-work, generated in faith and actualized in history."

Andrea Bartoli
Community of Sant' Egidio,
USA

"CPN is another concrete way of building solidarity among peacebuilders around the world. The energy that it will bring will help us in facing the many difficult challenges of peacebuilding work in our different contexts. My hope is that we are able to bring the same energy eventually to the communities directly affected by war, violence and conflict - creating not only a network of peacebuilders but more imoprtantly a network of communities all over the world."

Myla Leguro
Peace & Reconciliation
Program Manager
CRS-Phillippines

Overview of Colombian Conflict -- The Catholic Church's Role in Peacebuilding -- Internal Displacement -- Human Rights -- Social and Economic Development -- Peace Processes -- Education for Peace -- Reconciliation -- International Solidarity

Human Rights

Many initiatives and programs enable the Church to defend and promote human rights within Colombian society especially of the most poor and excluded. The Church has also made a commitment to contribute to a peaceful solution to the conflict by constantly denouncing violations of human rights--whatever their source.

The National Conciliation Commision (La Comisión de Conciliación Nacional, CCN) created by the CEC in 1995 is an independent and autonomous entity whose purpose is to search for peaceful solutions to the armed conflict of Colombia, create and faciliate spaces for encounters between the warring parties and to accompany peacebuilders of the society. The commission also actively promotes and defends human rights and international humanitarian law.

The Project for Testimony, Truth and Reconciliation (Testimonio, Verdad y Reconciliacion, TEVERE) developed by the SNPS in order to respond to the growing number of human rights violations and the culture of impunity within Colombia. This ministry seeks to bring the current situation of human rights violations to light in order to contribute to national reconciliation by acknowledging the truth of the victims and the reconstruction of historical memory. TEVERE publishes the human rights situation of Colombia in a quarterly bulletin.

Since 1987, the Week for Peace (Semana por la Paz) is an annual event in September supported by civil society to call for peace, justice and human rights protection within Colombia. This week mobilizes and educates the Colombian public to increase peacebuilding within the country and work towards increased forgiveness, solidarity, social justice and reconciliation. CRS provides materials for Week for Peace solidarity events.

FICONPAZ, working with a district office of the Secretary of Education, implements the Bosa Goza initiative. The aim of this project is to promote a human rights culture through accompaniment and training in a human rights curriculum in public schools of Bosa.

The Life, Justice and Peace office of the SNPS (Vida, Justicia y Paz, VJP) also supports workshops on human rights known as the 'School of Human Rights' (Escuela de DDHH) .