Maria Angela Prado Malca

Peace Building - Peru (South America)

 

“My action plan wants to prevent the escalating growth of violence in Peru. Lots of these young people are the so called 'children of war'.”

Maria wants to change youth violence situation by educating relevant social actors as to the causes and campaigning for change. Her aim is to heal the wounds individually and in society. 

Part of Maria’s project is to research the causes for increasing violence in the community. Maria has been working in her community even before OIYP2004. The research for her thesis is based in the small community of San Juan Bautista.  26 000 people live in this town that has been strongly affected by the times of civil war political violence. She aims to prove her hypothesis that crime is the consequences of the political violence in Peru. She identified high-levels of youth crime due to the legacy of violence and the process of dispossession and alienation.

 “The state is inactive and provides even more draconian punitive measures. There is no real public awareness of the nuances of this issue and there has been no real attempt to understand, and thus successfully combat, this trend.”

 As a regional coordinator for the Department of Ayacucho, Maria is working with the Asociacion Civil Sin Fines de Lucro WARMA. WARMA is a private, not-for-profit organization located in Lima formed by youth working on different issues and contributing to change in the Peruan society. The organization is trying to bring about change in the most vulnerable areas of society and to improve the livelihoods of the Peruan people. Projects are designed, planned and executed by youth with leadership skills.

 Maria believes prevention is the best action. For that aim, she wants to create a network with the already existing youth organizations.  Her goal is to combat youth violence and ameliorating the psycho-social impact of protracted conflict. The strategy is to mobilise and strengthen the youth networks using innovative and locally-appropriate methods of post-conflict therapy. Planned activities are so called “juegos ludicos” (ludic games), including circus and drama performances, as part of therapy and youth activity.