Well-known Peruvian documentarian Javier Corcuera hosted a special screening over the summer of his newest documentary, “Escuchar,” about the state violence that took place in Peru between December 2022 and March 2023, resulting in the deaths of 49 protesters.
It’s a story about people like Marco Antonio Samillán, a young doctor who was shot in the back while attempting to offer medical care to protestors. It's a story about Marco’s sister, Milagros, who was thrust into the role of justice advocate and activist for victims’ families after her brother’s murder. And it is — in a way — a story about the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program in Peru in which Milagros participates.
A few years ago, even the most gifted prognosticators would have been unlikely to predict that Milagros Samillán and the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program would cross paths. Prior to her brother’s assassination, Milagros was a young university student, still living in Juliaca, the rural Andean context where she’d grown up.
“I was just another citizen of this country, living my own life — business, university, and family life — trying to share as many moments as possible with my siblings because we had already lost my mother and were dealing with a very heavy loss for the family,” Samillán said.
Meanwhile, participants in the PC(USA)’s Young Adult Volunteer program have historically been from the United States. The program offered them a disruption to “regular life” — a chance to encounter a different context in another city or another country and spend a year living in intentional Christian community while serving the church and the world. Currently, the program offers sites in four U.S. cities and cities international locations.
When Covid made it impossible for the YAV program in Peru to accommodate young adults from the U.S., site coordinator Jenny Valles made an innovative shift: She brought on two Peruvian young adults instead. What began as a creative solution born of necessity became a new vision for the YAV program, and Valles continued to invite volunteers from Peru and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean alongside U.S. young adults.
“I believe having a more diverse YAV community is a more faithful approach to meeting the needs of the global church and addressing the challenges of the world today,” Valles said, noting that the diversity among volunteers also includes faith traditions, social location and life experiences. Samillán is one such example.
As state violence erupted in late 2022, Samillán and her family weren’t oblivious to the escalating situation, but they were focused on their own grief at their mother’s death. Then, on Jan. 9, police in Juliaca killed 18 people in a single day.
Samillán’s brother Marco was a doctor who had heard that protestors were being injured by police and went to offer medical care. Instead, he became one of those murdered, and Samillán’s life changed forever.
In the months after her brother’s death, Samillán felt a growing responsibility to speak up for her brother and the others who were killed, as well as 1,500 survivors, and the family members of those murdered with whom she had bonded.
“I had two options: lie in bed and cry for my brother's death or use my brother's memory and my brother’s name to help and support the family members’ struggle, which is also my struggle, which is not only Marco’s, but also part of the 49 families who are demanding justice today.”
Family members of the victims, including Samillán, came to Lima in the spring of 2023 and slept on the streets — a demonstration that became known as the “Lima Occupations” according to Efraín Barrera, a pastor and professor at an ecumenical theological school in Lima called AETE. Barrera said that, in response to the murders and victims’ families coming to Lima, AETE formed the Evangelicals Presente Collective made up of students and faculty who provided material support to the families and also organized a work of “prophetic denunciation” of the violence done by the government. Through this work, Samillán became involved with AETE and Barrera.
AETE has been in relationship with the PC(USA) since 2000 through various Presbyterian faculty members as well as the Joining Hands Network in Peru.
Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Andrew Kang Bartlett, Associate, Presbyterian Hunger Program, Interim Unified Agency
Dwayne Batcho, Production Clerk, Presbyterian Distribution Service, Administrative Services Group
Let us pray:
Holy God, upon you we depend. Help your church to stand strong — shining the light of your goodness in a troubled world and our often-troubled lives. Empower us to proclaim your salvation and new life in Jesus Christ. Amen.
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