Lionel Antonio Chevez, EWBI Cluster Director of Latin America
Emotional wellbeing is not just a state of being free of diseases. It is a lag indicator of other dimensions in a person and a community. One of these indicators is the relationship a person has with their culture , which gives her a framework and a purpose to seek help. This year, I had the privilege to conduct a fieldtrip to the border of El Salvador and Honduras. This trip was intended to initiate dialogue with indigenous leaders about their experience of living in a disputed region.
The two states have been in conflict since the 1960s. Finally, in 1992, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that many of the disputed territories were to be awarded to Honduras. While this ruling solved the stand-off between two states, it unleashed one of the worst nightmares for the indigenous people living there. Their identity, land tenure, education and health system was changed.
Since 1992, ex-Salvadorian Lenca indigenous people have lived as neo-Hondurans and are treated as inferior populations neglected by the state and subject to lethal threats. This phenomenon also applies to the Mayan indigenous people who perceive that the public health system does not attend to their needs. The neglect in Honduras is highlighted by a UN report.
Elders of the indigenous communities have expressed that the new masters have neglected their health and education, and while the two states have signed an agreement to support these communities in transitioning to the ruling, they never lived up to their terms in the agreement.
As a result, the indigenous people have lost faith in the process and have gradually moved to self-governing. Taking actions by themselves, perhaps, is a way to gain a sense of social agency through collective effort. After all, human experience is a subjective process within a social context.
I spoke to some elders about their lives in such a political limbo. They expressed that in their history they have lived under many different systems and they were able to adapt. This time is different, they said. It is like an unfolding natural disaster.
“This time, we have been traded from hand to hand, like objects, and currently, we have no confirmed identity. Not all have IDs and therefore we can’t register our property. Our children face an uncertain future,” one elder said.
They stated that being a minority neglected by the state felt like living under a natural disaster that has no end. If this is their perception, the impact on their mental wellness is unfavourable.
I thought about my understanding of and training in cognitive neurosciences, and the effect that insecurity has on the mental state. I also thought about the impact that a lack of identity has on human behaviour.
When a system, which is perceived to be larger and more powerful than us, is in control of our thoughts, and when we see ourselves to be under threat, our brains secrete stress hormones. Prolonged secretion of these chemicals has a dangerous effect on brain function and metabolic health.
Furthermore, if a new generation of children grows with a sense of displacement, lack of belonging and a sense of predation, it is likely that these future adults could develop harmful ways to address their grievances, or even worse, their life-long stress could develop into inter-generational pathologies. Chronic stress by parents is transferable to offspring.
We cannot forget that emotional wellness is also sustained by justice being seen to be served as much as good nutrition, sanitation and medical care are necessary for physical growth. Currently, no statistics has ever looked at the emotional wellbeing of the population of El Salvador and Honduras. In a region where civil wars, narco-terrorism and human trafficking is a perennial problem, this field needs to be examined.
By June 2020, the indigenous people in Nahuaterique mountain, will have the first survey on how their population feels. They will ask about the major issues that negatively impact their wellbeing. The tribal office will support the project with expertise in survey design and data analysis. ###