A reflection from Grace, CSW’s Latin America Deputy Team Leader  

I’ve never considered myself much of a storyteller. I have always been amazed by friends who can tell stories with such humour and relatability – their audience hooked on their every word! Yet I’ve come to realise that we are all storytellers, and we all have a story to tell. 

When I began working for CSW nearly nine years ago, I found myself captivated by the stories of individuals in Chile and in Cuba, and in remote communities in Mexico and Colombia that took hours to get to by car – often through winding treacherous mountain roads, with no telephone signal and little in the way of civilisation. Some of my colleagues who live in those countries have been to places so remote that they can only be reached by motorbike, donkey or on foot. 

People greeted me with such warmth and hospitality. They shared their food and welcomed me into their homes, even if those homes were little more than wooden huts with dirt floors. We were different from each other, but connected as people made in the image of our Creator, the greatest storyteller of all.  

Sometimes they spoke in Spanish, other times they were translated into Spanish from their native indigenous tongue. And as I listened, I felt the weightiness of responsibility to really hear and understand what they were saying – to digest it and document it so that it could be recorded, translated, published and heard.  

Changing the narrative  

We’ve really seen how the power of storytelling has begun to change the narrative that religious freedom violations don’t happen in Latin America, a predominantly Christian continent.  

In 2019, we brought 17-year-old Alma to share her story with the UK embassy in Mexico City. She’d been unable to go to school since her family were thrown out of their village in Jalisco State – alongside around 60 others – because they were Protestant Christians. I believe this meeting led in part to the UK government finally beginning to raise issues of freedom of religion or belief with the Mexican government. 

Following on from this, the 2022 ‘Let her be heard’ report told the stories of 25 indigenous and two mestiza women from religious minority communities in Mexico. It was a first, in response to a dearth of information and analysis by monitoring bodies and experts regarding the unique experiences of women from those communities. The women from a very remote part of Jalisco said that they had been praying for an organisation to visit them and hear their stories. What a privilege to be the answer to their prayers! 

I believe this report has been instrumental in opening up training opportunities with Mexican state officials, helping them to understand what is happening and encourage them to uphold rule of the law and freedom of religion or belief in these communities.  

Angelina’s story 

One of the women who took part in the report was Angelina from Hidalgo. At the beginning of 2019, the local authorities removed her and other Protestant Christian families’ access to water, sewerage services, government benefit programmes and the community mill for over a year. They were forced to walk one kilometre uphill to bathe in the river and bring drinking water home. 

As a result, Angelina suffered a uterine prolapse when she tried to carry a 20-litre jar of water from the river on her own. Due to the risk of a repeat occurrence, she underwent a hysterectomy in July 2019. Her daughter-in- law, who was pregnant at the time, lived with her for a short time after the operation, acting as her carer. But she had to return to her own home because she couldn’t manage without access to water and sewerage services. 

When I met Angelina in December that year, she expressed her isolation: ‘Nobody has visited me…I feel rejected, like I am worth nothing.’ I felt privileged to listen to her and remind her she is not alone. Her face was visibly softened; there was both relief and comfort in being heard. 

People like Angelina deserve to have their story heard, and the fact that you are reading this today shows that they can be. Thank you. 

Watch: 

Our ‘Stories from the Wilderness’ series interviews Christians from China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, and Nigeria. 

Watch it on YouTube or at csw.org.uk/wilderness