Photo: AlbaVolunteer.org

Fredy Peccerelli - Guatemala's foremost forensic anthropologist and longtime advocate of a strong partnership between UNBC and his organization - the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) is profiled in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday, July 3rd. The feature piece "The Secrets in Guatemala's Bones," written by Maggie Jones, was 18 months in the making and documents Fredy's growth and development with the now world-renowned FAFG. Under Fredy's guidance and leadership, the FAFG work with communities to find and exhume the bodies of thousands of victims of Guatemala's 36-year long internal armed conflict. The beautiful work of the organization is to identify and returned the bodies of the massacred and disappeared to their families, and now to provide critical evidence in current trials of those charged with forced disappearance and crimes against humanity.

For more than a decade, Geography's Dr. Catherine Nolin and our UNBC Geography + Rights Action field schools have benefited from a formal agreement signed between the FAFG and UNBC. Fredy Peccerelli and the FAFG often host our undergraduate and graduate students during our time in Guatemala. Due to this strong commitment, UNBC appointed Fredy as an Adjunct Professor in the Geography Program and the Governor General of Canada travelled to Guatemala to award Fredy with a Special Honours Award in recognition of continued and exceptional service for the promotion of relations between Guatemala and Canada.

What to Do & How to Support?

FAFG website
Friends of FAFG website
Dr. Catherine Nolin's Emergency Delegation to Guatemala, May 2016
On Twitter at @FAFGuatemala