Self-care as a Political Strategy

Ana María Hernández Cárdenas and Nallely Guadalupe Tello Méndez, SUR International Journal on Human Rights, 26 (2017)

This article by the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) and the Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity Oaxaca, AC (Consorcio para el Diálogo Parlamentario y la Equidad Oaxaca), a member of the IM-Defensoras’ Steering Committee, reflects on how the network has promoted self-care and collective care within the women human rights defenders that they work with. It discusses how they re-framed self-care and well-being from a personal concept, to a “defiant political, feminist strategy that helps…move forward in a loving and collective way”. The article also discusses the experience of running Casa La Serena, a respite program run for women human rights defenders who are in need of recovery. [See our Programs page for a discussion of Case La Serena.]