Educate and Organize your Community!

Hosting a speaker in the lead-up to national SOA Watch gathering, mobilizing your friends to a speaking event that is already planned or organizing a film screening is a great way to educate and activate community members in your area. Check out the list of speakers below. If you would like to host one of the speakers/performers listed below, please contact them with your interest.

If you are a student or teacher, consider having a SOA Watch speaker as part of your curriculum!

If you are hosting a speaker, be sure to spread the word. In nearby cafés, libraries, schools, churches, community centers, via email or social media, it's important to give sufficient time to your community to prepare for the event. You can download a basic Word template for announcing a speaker event, or be creative and design your own! Remember word of mouth is still a very effective organizing tool, so don't be afraid to go in person or use your phone!

You can also order the SOA Watch 101 informational sheet to hand out at your event, or check out our other resources.

Don't forget to have sign up sheets available during the event, and send it back to us, in order to connect your attendees with future SOA Watch information!

Contact SOA Watch at 202-234-3440 for more help and information.

Hector Aristizábal

Hector is a native of Medellin, Colombia and currently lives in California. Hector is a long time SOA Watch activist, who has been part of the Puppetistas for several years. His commitment to the human rights work forced him to leave his country in 1989 due to death threats. He is an actor and a practitioner of the techniques known as Theater of the Oppressed.

Hector Aristizabal performs Nightwind, a harrowing solo performance in which he re-enacts his own arrest and torture by the SOA-trained military in Colombia. For more information and to invite Hector, contact him at (626) 221-7710 or visit www.ImaginAction.org

Rev. Luis Barrios, SOA Watch Prisoner of Conscience

Rev. Luis Barrios is speaking to communities about the School of the Americas and the SOA graduate led military coup in Honduras. He also talks about his experience crossing the line at Ft. Benning, being convicted of trespassing and becoming a prisoner of conscience. The Rev. Luis Barrios, Ph.D., is a professor at John Jay College in New York. He is also the chair of the Department of Latin American & Latina/o Studies. Since 1988, Dr. Barrios is a columnist of El Diario La Prensa in New York City, one of the oldest Spanish newspapers in the United States. In addition, Rev. Barrios is an associate priest at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in West Harlem, New York City. He is an active member of IFCO-Pastor for Peace Board of Director.

You can contact Luis Barrios at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (212) 237-8747 for more information or to invite him to speak in your community

Father Roy Bourgeois, M.M., SOA Watch Founder

Father Roy has spent over four years in US federal prisons for nonviolent protests against the training of Latin American soldiers at Ft. Benning, Georgia. His talks have inspired thousands to take action for social justice.

To set up an event with Fr. Roy, contact the SOA Watch office in Columbus at 706-682-5369.

Check out the following dates and times to see if Fr. Roy is coming to your city!

2013 Spring Speaking Tour

Jack Gilroy, SOA Watch Prisoner of Conscience

Jack Gilroy is a full time human rights/peace activist and former Prisoner of Conscience for the School of the Americas Watch. Gilroy’s two novels of young men who refused to be part of the United States military, "Absolute Flanigan" and "The Wisdom Box", received gold medal awards by OMNI Center for Peace & Justice.

Two of Jack’s plays received strong praise when performed at the  Columbus Convention Center in Georgia. Render to Caesar?: The Story of Franz Jagerstatter, The Predator (a play about drone warfare) and Sentenced to Death for Not Killing: The story of Ben Salmon, are available for performances by universities and small theater companies without charge.

Sentenced to Death for Not Killing is being offered as a fund raiser for the School of the Americas Watch. Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Becca Polk, SOA Watch Student and Youth Coodinator

Want to mobilize students on your campus to build and strengthen the movement to shut the SOA and U.S domination in Latin America? There are many ways to bring the SOA to your campus or community. Becca Polk, SOA Watch Student and Youth Coordinator, is traveling around, leading popular education style workshops to create awareness and commitment to building a strong movement to oppose US interventions in Latin America, whether it be military, economic or political. Whether your group is well versed in SOA Watch and militarization on the continent or are new to this area of organizing, a workshop or event can be adapted to your needs and interests.

Contact Becca at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (202)234-3400 to get in touch or find out more ways to  organize around the SOA on your campus.

Simón Sedillo

Simon is a community rights defense organizer and film maker. He has spent the last 8 years documenting, producing and teaching community based video documentation in Mexico and the US. Through lectures, workshops, and short films, Sedillo breaks down the effects of neoliberalism, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and militarism on indigenous communities, immigrant communities, and communities of color in the US and Mexico. Through collaborative media projects, Sedillo’s work has contributed to a growing network of communities whose primary objective is to share, teach, and learn from one another, about community based media production and the collective construction of horizontal networks of community rights defense. Sedillo is also an active member of the campaign to close the U.S. Army School of the America’s, at Fort Benning, in Columbus, GA. You can find him at the gates of the U.S. Army base every November along with the folks from The School of the America’s Watch at www.soaw.org.

For more information visit www.ElEnemigoComun.net. If you are interested in hosting an event at your University or community center, please contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Stephania Shanks

Based in Richmond, CA,  Stephania is a youth organizer and prisoner's rights educator. As an activist trained and educated at the Evergreen State College, she first developed a passion for popular education and criminology while working and co-learning with incarcerated youth in Centralia, WA. She has her degree in Political Economy with a focus on the Prison-Industrial Complex and is currently an intern at HEPPAC (HIV Education and Prevention Project of Alameda County) serving marginalized communities in the Bay area by helping increase participation in preventative care.

To invite Stephania to your community, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Lisa Sullivan, SOA Watch Latin America Liaison
Lisa went on a month-long speaking tour in 2009. Lisa visited Honduras and was able to attend a meeting with President Zelaya a few weeks prior to the coup of June 28 and returned to Honduras shortly after the military coup to accompany human rights organizers in the streets. Lisa has lived in Latin America since 1977. She worked for 21 years as a Maryknoll lay missioner in Venezuela and Bolivia, and currently lives in Barquisimeto, Venezuela.

As the Latin America Coordinator, Lisa has led numerous delegations to Latin American countries to meet with political officials and social movement leaders throughout the region.

Please feel free to contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more on Latin American speakers.

Nico Udu-gama, SOA Watch Field Organizer

As an international human rights observer in Colombia, Nico spent one year in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, and three years with the communities in the Magdalena Medio, Arauca, Catatumbo and Bogotá.  Later, he worked with tenants facing displacement in Brooklyn, NY, and spent time with the villages resisting the Apartheid Wall in Palestine. Nico strongly believes that your work to connect with others in your own community is a key part of our movement's work to close the SOA. Get involved, join the movement to resist violence and domination and be part of building a culture of justice and peace.

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to get Nico to come and talk your ear off.

Spring 2013 Tour

Feb 22-23 - Pittsburgh, PA

Feb 24-25 - Erie, PA

Feb 25-26 - Cleveland, OH

Feb 26 - Dayton, OH

Feb 27-28 - Indianapolis, IN

Mar 1 - Dayton, OH

Cecilia Zarate-Laun, Colombia Support Network
Cecilia was a member of the SOA Watch Advisory Group. She was born and raised in Colombia and graduated from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 1966. She co-founded the Colombia Support Network (CSN) in 1988 to address U.S. foreign policy toward the war in Colombia and to help foster a national solidarity movement in the U.S. with the Colombian people. She has been active with CSN since its inception and has been the Program Director since 1997. Throughout that time, she has spoken and written extensively on the violence in Colombia.

Mobilize your community for the November Vigil to Close the School of the Americas

Organize a film screening in your community.

Order the DVD Compilation of Films to Close the SOA/ WHINSEC and to Change Oppressive U.S. Foreign Policy. The DVD features twelve of the some of the finest films on the School of the Americas and the movement to shut it down. The compilation includes eight English and four Spanish short films and is an excellent resource for both those who are new to SOA Watch and those who are long-time supporters of the movement.

The following films are on the compilation DVD:

English

Buy the DVD:
Order it now for only $17 plus $3 shipping and handling You can send a check or money order to:

SOA Watch
P.O. Box 4566
Washington DC 20017

or click here to order the SOA Watch DVD compilation online.