By David Bertet and Moises Castello | President and Director
Dear En Vero Donors.
This is our 13th Report on our ongoing fundraising campaign with GlobalGiving. On this occasion, we wish to thank our donors and supporters for their trust in our work. As you all know, En Vero - which means "in truth" in Esperanto - is a Human Rights Organization based in Montreal, Canada. We provide pro bono logistic and legal help to those who have been falsely accused around the world, with a focus on Mexico and Columbia.
Our work team is composed of dedicated volunteers. Due to the drastic increase in the number of requests for assistance we have been receiving lately, and the number of cases of wrongful incarcerations in total, En Vero is looking toward strengthening its staff and hire one to two employees in the upcoming months.
As you probably remember, En Vero recently co-organized, along with renowned US-based Mexican journalist Guadalupe Lizarraga, the first national forum dedicated to victims of wrongful convictions in the Mexico. This Forum was held on Nov. 5 - 6, 2018 at the House of Representatives in Mexico City. The event proved to be a huge success in terms of attendance, media coverage, visibility for the victims of wrongful convictions and their relatives, and the now common use of the concept of "fabricacion de culpables" ("manufacturing of guilt") to describe a definite set of institutional mechanisms designed to incarcerate innocent people.
In particular, two highly controversial cases in Mexico, namely the Wallace Case and the Marti Case, were exposed, either during the forum in Mexico and in subsequent interviews. Another reason to rejoice lies in our partnership with the government of newly-elected Mexican President Lopez Obrador, and our working hand-in-hand toward finding an aceptable solution for those who have been unfairly incarcerated in this country.
In December 2018, En Vero and Guadalupe Lizarraga presented the first part of their common database of victims of wrongful convictions to the Secretary of State (Secretaria de Gobernacion), and we are currently working on the second part, which will be presented and given to the Mexican authorities in the upcoming weeks.
Surfing on the success of the forum in Mexico, we encouraged our partner in Columbia FondeJusticia y Verdad to organize a similar event in their country following the same guidelines and goals, and supported them in the process. The "International Forum on Wrongful Convictions" was held at the Senate in Bogota on March 21, 2019, with the participation of renowned officials and Human Rights advocates such as the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Dr. Luis Almagro Lemes. En Vero's President, David Bertet, took part in the first panel on International Experience and Judicial Guarantees (See video below).
As for our on-going fundraising campaign with GlobalGiving, we have been able to raise an estimated total of 10,027.39 $CAD, since we initiated the second phase of our campaign. However, we have to admit that we have been experiencing a slowdown in the number, frequency, and amount of donations received lately through our GlobalGiving platform.
We will do our best to promote more efficiently our campaign in the upcoming weeks. We also count on you to spread the word around you on En Vero's work. The following report will closely resemble the one already published in December 2018. Please note that the following corresponds to the use of the donations received through GlobalGiving only.
Office expenses (including mailing, printing, website maintenance): $1050.41 CAD
Travel expenses: $4311.61 CAD
Work meetings: $211 CAD. This section includes the rent of work spaces for our meetings.
Professional fees (Investigation, translation): $203 CAD (unchanged)
Direct help to the victims: $323 CAD.
In this section, we take into account the expenses aimed at providing immediate physical and psychological assistance to the victims. Total spent (between July 2017 and March Sept 2010): $6098 CAD.
Thank you all, We will share more with you on our next report.
Kune por pli justa mondo. Together, for a better world.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
