Benefit Concert to celebrate a family separated by war

 

Two local women adopted in 1981 during the civil war in El Salvador will be reuniting with their birth mother this July after 35 years of separation.  With the help of a Salvadoran human rights organization called Asociacion Probusqueda por los ninas y ninos, Isabel and Ana Williams were reconnected with their birth family in 2010. After five years of  determination and dedication on the part of  friends and allies working alongside their family in both the U.S. and El Salvador, the family finally succeeded in securing the visa that will bring their birth mother to America this July. 

 

The Williams family will be holding a benefit concert at the Hooker Dunham Theatre on July 2nd in order to raise awareness and funds to help with the cost of the reunion and to support the work of Asociacion Pro-Busqueda.  A representative from the organization will speak about the ongoing work of reuniting families separated during the Salvadoran civil war.  Founded in 1994, following the Peace Accords and the subsequent creation of the Truth Commission, Asociacion Pro-Busqueda was formed through the desire of families seeking to find their children who had been forcibly disappeared by state forces during the civil war. With the shared vision and guidance of the late Father Jon Cortina of the Jesuit Order and the dedication of its staff which is comprised of family members searching for their disappeared loved ones, Asociacion Pro-Busqueda has become a strong voice for justice in El Salvador.

 

For more information about the organization, go to: www.probusqueda.org.sv  

 

To view a short film featuring the testimony about the separation of the Williams sisters from their family, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMi8SSG7AKI

Or visit the website of the Unfinished Sentences Project and view; “We Never Stopped Looking for You: The Disappeared Children of the Canoas Massacre, El Salvador.”