IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 9 ENGLISH | Page 88

Latin America Today

Identidades
[Identities] in Peru
Marco Antonio Ramírez
President of Ashanti Peru - Network of Young People of African Descent
Lima, Perú

A

shanti Peru has been mobilizing
the Afro-Peruvian youth for
more than 12 years. They are
mobilized for leadership training and
direct
fighting
against
racism,
discrimination and poverty of the
African descent. Ashanti Peru seeks
their active and effective participation
in full exercise of citizenship and
human rights. It also promotes public
policies for social inclusion that shall
empower the Afro-Peruvian youth to
perform the tasks of real community
development and to take part in the
decision-making process at local,
regional and national levels.
During these years, we tried different
innovative strategies for training and
political education, always with the

intention
of
raising
awareness,
strengthening
identity,
increasing
knowledge of human rights and
emphasizing the need to engage in the
defense of the rights of the AfroPeruvian population. That’s our course
of action against the statistical
invisibility, the media attempts to
exaggerate or to ridicule our physical
features, the exclusion —from the
official books— of the Afro-Peruvian
inputs into the social progress, the
under-representation of the AfroPeruvians in the public structures and
the lack of consultation with our
communities while developing public
policies that directly affect us.

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