En resiliencia y transformación: Empoderamiento de las comunidades para lograr la equidad de género y la salud mental

The organization has almost a dozen international offices that implement programs in mental health, access to justice, quality and stigma-free healthcare, and human rights protection, with a focus on gender equity. Heartland Alliance International is part of a family of organizations that has a long history of addressing social and economic challenges in Chicago. In Colombia, Heartland Alliance International has been working to address the mental health and psychosocial well-being of victims and survivors of the armed conflict. The organization believes in the power of resilience and transformation that victims and survivors possess, and it has been training community leaders in the regions most affected by the conflict to provide mental health and psychosocial support services to participants. The organization's purpose is to provide innovative, participatory, and community-based mental health services, including psychosocial support, access to justice, prevention and attention to gender-based violence, and reproductive health care to underserved populations. Heartland Alliance International has a presence in five departments in Colombia and has supported 7,300 direct participants, trained 120 community psychosocial agents, and strengthened 1,100 public servants. One of the organization's notable projects is the ACOPLE (Alianza con Organizaciones por lo Emocional) initiative, which was launched in 2010 and ran for 10 years until 2020. The project aimed to provide emotional support to victims and survivors of the armed conflict in Buenaventura and Quibdó through culturally appropriate mental health and psychosocial services. ACOPLE was implemented in partnership with the Asociación Nacional de Afrodescendientes Desplazados de Colombia (Afrodes) and has become a reference point for psychosocial well-being in the region. Through ACOPLE, Heartland Alliance International provided specialized mental health services, individual and group psychosocial interventions, and social work accompaniment to victims and survivors of the armed conflict. The project also strengthened the capacity of local and national institutions to respond to the psychosocial and well-being needs of victims and survivors. The impact of ACOPLE over 10 years has been significant, with 3,200 participants receiving individual and community-level services. The project has become a leader in accompanying the emotional recovery of survivors and victims of the armed conflict in Buenaventura and Quibdó. Additionally, ACOPLE has strengthened institutional capacities in mental health, psychosocial attention, and emotional care for government, non-governmental, and community organizations. The project has also adapted its community-based care model for indigenous populations and has strengthened over 25 community psychosocial agents in mental health and psychosocial attention tools.