Evening with Lydia Cordero Cabrera
Sunday, September 24, 2017 - 6:00pm
In support of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Peacemaking Program, Westminster is hosting a soup and bread meal with Lydia Cordero Cabrera on Sunday, September 24 at 6:00 pm in Mackey Hall. Lydia serves as General Director for Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis (Friendly House Crisis Center) in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. She has been with Casa Amiga since 2001 and moved into the role of General Director in 2015. The Center offers hope to women and their children who live in violence daily. It provides a full range of services by professionals in psychology, social work, legal services, and women’s medicine. There is also a secure, undisclosed shelter that is also part of the Casa Amiga system. Lydia also participates in a number of networks and movements including the Red Mesa de Mujeres Cuidad Juarez (Network table for those advocating women’s rights) and Movimiento de Mujeres (Women’s Movement). She serves as advisor to the Municipal Council of Social Development and Citizen Participation, Advisor to the Municipal Institute for Women, and has played a major role in collaborating with other institutions to create law enforcement protocol when dealing with cases of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez. She has presented at several forums on violence against women in universities in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico City, and Guanajuato, Mexico. She is published in the Jornada Clínica sobre Violencia y Salud (Clinical Journal about Violence and Health) with an article titled, “Prevention and intervention in domestic violence against women” (Prevención e intervención en violencia conyugal contra las mujeres).
Casa Amiga Centro de Crisis (Friendly house crisis center) was founded by Ester Chavez Cano to address issues of violence against women in Ciudad Juarez. It is a site that offers hope to women and their children who live violence daily. The Center provides a full range of services by professionals in psychology, social work, legal services, and women’s medicine. There is also a secure, undisclosed shelter that is also part of the Casa Amiga system. The goal of Casa Amiga is to restore health and wholeness to women and children who are victims of domestic, partner, and/or sexual violence. We lead a sexual violence prevention program that is aimed at youth and children in Ciudad Juarez. Most recently, we have also opened a separate organization that works with aggressors of violence who seek to change. As an organization we also ally with other organizations in Ciudad Juarez, throughout Mexico and throughout the world, to address larger issues of violence against women like human trafficking and the sex industry. Our work has also reached beyond immediate care to collaborate with the municipality to create a law enforcement manual to train officers on dealing with cases of violence against women. We do all of this because we are called to work with women who have survived violence to recover a life of dignity and fullness. Casa Amiga works as a close ally with Pasos de Fe Presbyterian border ministry site in Ciudad Juarez. They also collaborate with Presbyterian Churches in El Paso, TX.
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