Monday, February 17, 2025 @ 4:30pm

Q&A AFTERWARDS with

JUDY JACKSON AND PASTOR IGNACIO RAMIREZ MARTINEZ

The USAID Funding cuts have seriously affected ABBA House.

Please join us for a benefit screening of Judy Jackson’s award-winning film to help raise urgently needed funds to keep the doors open at Albergue ABBA migrant shelter in Celaya.

This documentary celebrates the 7 th anniversary of the ABBA shelter for migrants in Celaya. Founded by Pastor Ignacio Ramirez and his family, it has cared for more than 80,000 migrants who are fleeing violence, crime, climate change and corruption in their home countries.

Award-winning filmmaker Judy Jackson has been regularly taking her camera to ABBA over the past several years. She brings a profile of the amazing commitment of Pastor Ignacio Ramirez and all those who work at ABBA. Migrants passing through the shelter share their difficult stories. Many risk their lives traveling on top of rapidly moving trains headed towards Mexico’s northern border. Tragically, some fall and lose limbs.

Working with the Red Cross, ABBA became the first migrant shelter in Mexico to help those whose dreams have been suddenly shattered, working with the Red Cross to provide amputees with therapy and protheses, psychological care and a space to heal.

Now Pastor Ignacio is realizing a new exciting dream – to develop a huge piece of nearby land into a Cultural Centre, with art, music and academic workshops – a place o peace for amputees while they heal and refocus. It will be an example to the world of what is possible.

Judy Jackson’s documentaries about human rights and social justice – filmed in many parts of the world – have won more than 60 international awards and been broadcast widely in Canada, the USA and the UK. They have also created ripples of change and raised money for many NGO’s A discussion will follow the screening.