Helping El Salvador's amputees

One of the great things about this blog is getting to spread the word about people doing really great things in El Salvador. Today is one of those times. Lari Hotra works with the Survivor Corps in El Salvador, advocating for the disabled, particularly those who lost limbs from landmines during El Salvador's civil war. Here is a little about her from the website of the Advocacy Project:

Larissa “Lari” Maria Hotra is an AP Peace Fellow with Survivor Corps (formally the Landmine Survivors Network) in El Salvador. She is a first year Master’s student at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She is concentrating on conflict resolution, with a thematic focus on human rights.

She will be assisting Survivor Corps-El Salvador in implementing an awareness campaign to educate and train institutions and the public on the Disability Rights Convention and the new Salvadoran Disability Rights Laws. She will also help Survivor Corps-El Salvador to create a communications and media strategy, advance the organization’s advertising campaign, and support the organizing of proceedings for a multi-city public march for disability rights, among other initiatives.

Lari has been blogging about her experiences in El Salvador and recently wrote about a football/soccer match of Salvadoran amputees:

I came with no expectations. I have never seen an amputee futbol game before, and I left the game believing that anything is possible.

The Salvadoran Association of Amputee Football team consists of approximately 30 players—former guerrillas, soldiers, and civilians of El Salvador's bloody civil war. Guanacos, (slang for El Salvadorans), who formerly fought each other with machetes and machine guns all over the country were instead going to compete for victory on the futbol field, this time with a pair of specialty crutches and a single fubal. It is a post-war reunion, of sorts, on the cancha (futbol field) to

Just
Play
Ball.

As I see it, the Guanacos on the field had three major things in common: a violent past, amputations, and a timeless love for futbol, El Salvador's favorite national pastime. (more)

See more in this video Lari made at the game.