Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo

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Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (Mutual Support Group--GAM) is a Guatemalan human rights organization. It was founded in June 1984 by a group of Guatemalan women who were searching for their loved ones who were Desaparecidos, or forcibly disappeared, during the Guatemalan Civil War from 1960 to 1996. [1] The main goal of GAM is to bring together the families of people who were forcibly disappeared and to seek justice for people who disappeared. [2] The GAM was nominated to receive a Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. [3] The group received the Carter–Menil Human Rights Prize in 1986. [4] The 2011 documentary The Eco del Dolor de Mucha Gente tells the story of the founding of GAM and the violence and threats they faced. [5]

Several of the women who founded GAM include Nineth Montenegro, Aura Elena Farfán, Rosario Cuevas, Sara Poroj, and others. [6] Due to the many threats to the group, members received international accompaniment from Peace Brigades International and support from Amnesty International. [7] [8] The group is currently led by Mario Polanco.

Since 2017, GAM has had a collaboration with Haverford College Libraries. The relationship between GAM and Haverford College Libraries began when a Haverford professor and GAM met while researching in Guatemala. Both parties shared a common interest in preserving GAM's archive and they quickly collaborated. Haverford has begun to fund projects for students in collaboration with GAM. These projects have taken on a variety of forms, including research on nonviolent resistance efforts taken by the GAM, the voices of women and mothers in the archive, and a process of demographic analysis to depict who is in the archive, among others.

References

  1. ↑ 'Those Who Die for Life Cannot Be Called Dead:' Women and Human Rights Protest in Latin America; Jennifer Schirmer, Feminist Review: No. 32 (Summer, 1989), pp. 3-29 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1395361
  2. ↑ Zarafonetis, Mike. "Research Guides: Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM) Digital Archive: Home". guides.tricolib.brynmawr.edu.
  3. ↑ "GAM". archivogam.haverford.edu.
  4. ↑ https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/peace/human_rights/menil-award-1988.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  5. ↑ https://vimeo.com/30243348
  6. ↑ "Asesinato de María del Rosario Godoy de Cuevas," María Olga Domínguez Ogaldes, Agencia Ocote, 19 July 2025. Last accessed 2 Aug 2025. https://www.agenciaocote.com/blog/2025/07/29/aqui-paso-algo-asesinato-de-maria-del-rosario-godoy-de-cuevas/
  7. ↑ "Guatemala: fear for physical safety: Members of the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo por el Aparecimiento con Vida de Nuestros Familiares (GAM)" Amnesty International Bulletin, 13 October 1992. Last accessed 3 Aug 2025. https://www.amnesty.org/es/documents/amr34/044/1992/en/
  8. ↑ Guatemala: Fear for safety, Amnesty International Bulletin, 12 Dec 2000, last accessed 3 Aug 2025. https://www.amnesty.org/es/documents/amr34/051/2000/en/,
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