Last Day in Guatemala

Today, AFEDES invited me to join in two of their regularly scheduled activities.

In the morning, I attended a workshop the staff was participating in called "Popular Education." This was interesting because we were comparing different models of education. The most common one in Guatemala and many parts of the world is the model that transmits information from one person to the other, but without allowing the student to question or debate the information.

On the other hand, the "popular education" model allows the community members to come together to analyze a problem collectively and find solutions or ideas and then act upon them. The objective here is to construct a plan together, to come out of the meeting with next steps based on an exchange of experiences and perspectives. This is critical training for AFEDES staff to receive, as most of them are working directly with the communities and are facilitating groups of women to help address local issues and needs collectively which requires them to come up with their own solutions.

In the afternoon, I tagged along with Milvian, AFEDES’ Economic Development Program Coordinator and Luisa, an intern who's currently training women in basic veterinary medicine in the of village Yalu, a 45 minutes drive from AFEDES' office. I was pleased to see that the road to Yalu had undergone a lot of improvements. On a previous trip to Yalu three years ago, it had caused damage to the bus I was on and I ended up walking an hour to the nearest town. This time the trip was uneventful.

In Yalu, we met with representatives from the village's council, who want to find a way to address a huge problem they are having with harvest mites, also known as chiggers. The mites are a dangerous pest because they often carry a tiny parasite that carries scrub typhus. Scrub typhus causes fever, headache, muscle pain, cough and gastrointestinal symptoms. It is causing severe illness in children of this village in particular.

AFEDES facilitated the meeting for representatives to come together with a plan to submit to the government to support them with vaccines and medicine. Although this is not a direct service that AFEDES offers, where possible they try to respond to an issue the women have requested support in. This is an example of how AFEDES supports women's needs outside of their traditional programs.

This day was also a trip down memory lane, when I used to volunteer with AFEDES and would accompany them on their many activities to get a sense of their work. I also had another chance to visit another community I used to spend time with.

This was the final community visit that I had for my trip, and I'm happy that I got a chance to learn so much from the groups: AFEDES, APROSADSE, and ISMU.

Hopefully, you have been able to picture a little bit of what I have visited on this trip, and maybe it'll encourage you to visit Guatemala. This country is so beautiful and the people here are optimistic, working hard for their families. I feel grateful for having met them, and it encourages me to continue to support them.

Thanks for joining me on this visit!

Until the next one....

Photo credit: Marlon Garcia

Women Weaving Livelihoods

I was thrilled today that I'd be visiting communities where groups of women are participating in AFEDES’ Foot-Loom Weaving Program.

This is a program AFEDES started last year after identifying a market opportunity for their weavers. Back-strap weaving is the traditional weaving method practiced by local weavers. With back-strap weaving the women hang their textile from one end on a pole and tie the other end around their waist, and they weave kneeling down. This weaving takes a long time and is labor intensive but it allows weavers to be very detailed in their work, making the product even more valuable.

Foreign markets have noticed the value and beauty of Guatemalan textiles and are offering opportunities to purchase orders of these products. But the back-strap method takes too long to fulfill orders. Foot-loom weaving produces textile products in less time and in a more uniformed way. However it is has been the custom that men weave with foot-looms, and so few women have the opportunity to learn this technique. AFEDES realized there were not enough foot-loom weavers to fulfill high-volume orders that could ultimately yield a good income. So AFEDES initiated the program to train women how to use the foot-loom.

The first community we visited was the village of Santiago Zamora, near the town of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, known for its colorful, detailed textiles that fetch a high value. Around 125 families live in Santiago Zamora, where typically women are traditional back-strap weavers and men are field laborers.

Here I met six women who are participating in the Foot-Loom Weaving Program. For many of them this is the first time they've seen a foot loom. I asked them, "Why did you want to learn foot-loom weaving?"

One of the students, Lucila, said, "The goal I had was to learn more weaving and to have the opportunity to learn to do other type of weaving products."

Lucila is a back strap weaver, currently the President of the group of women in Santiago Zamora that is receiving a microcredit loan from AFEDES. The group is called Bella Flor, meaning beautiful flower. The foot-loom is being housed at Lucila's house because she has the extra space. The women take it in turns to visit Lucila in order to practice their homework on the foot-loom.

AFEDES finds it initially has many women interested in the learning the foot-loom. But once the program starts the women unfortunately drop out for many reasons. Often it is an issue of time. The program requires weekly attendance plus time to practice their homework. As mothers, who are also working to earn an income by weaving on the back-strap loom, their time is limited.

Women stop coming to the training because of transportation costs. Often the women in the program have to travel to a neighboring village to attend the training. This is the reason Lidia left the group. She already knew a little about foot-loom weaving, and when AFEDES announced the program, she immediately signed up. But with the high costs of transportation, she left the program to save the money for her family. She told her husband how sad she was to leave the program, so her husband encouraged her to return. She's happy now that she's back and has the support of her husband.

Our next visit was with the women of Santo Domingo Xenacoj, where I met 11 women participants of the Foot-Loom Weaving Program. A few of them had familiar faces; from the time I was a volunteer at AFEDES.

Gloria Estela is the President of the group of women in Santo Domingo Xenacoj that has also received microcredit loans from AFEDES. In addition, she's the trainer of the Foot-Loom Weaving Program. Thanks to her, many women are learning a new skill that will help them generate more income in the long-term.

When we started talking the women shared with me if they were married or single. Every time someone said she was married, someone would say, "But she wishes she was single!"
"Ha, ha, ha," the rest of the women would laugh.
Another one would say, "I'm living with a partner."
"But she's still looking!" someone else would say.
"Ha, ha, ha," responded the group of women.

When they finished, I asked if they wanted to know about us. ‘Us’ being me, Milvian - AFEDES Economic Development Program Coordinator, Gloria - AFEDES Community Trainer, and Marlon, a photographer accompanying us who was the only man present. "Yes," someone said, "but especially we want to learn about the photographer's status."

"Ha, ha, ha," - the laughter just didn't seem to end!

After our conversation, the women showed me what they had learned from Gloria Estela. We were having so much fun; we ended up leaving very late from the community. It was a long day, but very rewarding!
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia

Changes at AFEDES

After a restful Sunday walking around the beautiful colonial city of Antigua and falling in love again with traditional textiles shopping at the local market it was back to work on Monday.

I caught the bus near the local market that would take me to AFEDES, located in Santiago Sacatepéquez (45 minutes from Antigua). On the local buses in Guatemala, there is a driver and his assistant who collects the bus fare. I'm always surprised how fearless these assistants are because they stand right next to the front door, which is open, while the bus travels at 50 miles/hour. In my opinion the assistant is just asking to fall out.

Getting to Santiago takes two buses, a route that I'm very familiar with, as I was a volunteer with AFEDES in 2005. Already I can see changes in this city. There are shopping malls being built and the city feels bigger. My local doctor while I lived in Santiago is now the city's mayor! The biggest change of all is AFEDES, which has expanded to a new building that has three floors and so many offices that I kept getting lost.

Last year, AFEDES went through a strategic planning phase and as a result, have redefined their mission, vision and values, and have even changed their name. They are now called "Alliance to Foment Equality and Development by the Women of Sacatepéquez." Their acronym has remained AFEDES because it has already established credibility and value in the field.

2007 was an election year in Guatemala and AFEDES wanted to inform women about their right to vote and help them become more aware of the electoral process. This initiated AFEDES’ Advocacy program. Through this program AFEDES offered workshops on voting and the electoral process. They gave the workshops to 26 groups with an average attendance of 15 people. AFEDES also organized five workshops on leadership development focusing on activities that reflected on the political, social and economical context that rural women are living in today's Guatemala.

In addition to the Advocacy Program, AFEDES is currently running three other programs: Economic Development, Health, and their newest program, Education and Training for Personal Development.

Microcredit falls under the Economic Development program. AFEDES works with 27 groups of women that offer microcredit. One of the results of strategic planning was the need for AFEDES to redefine its microcredit groups so as to better encourage women to work collectively and establish their own self-sustainability.

Last year, AFEDES was able to provide seed funding to 31 women who wanted to start a community store stocked with day-to-day items. This project was a first-time experiment to support women from different communities who wanted to be part of a collective microenterprise, independent of AFEDES. The store has had challenges; over half of the women have dropped out, leaving behind 15 women to run the store. Nevertheless within one year of opening, the store has already broke even.

As a result of the Economic Development program, AFEDES was able to give out 80 scholarship loans to students of primary, secondary education and vocational school education.

A new area AFEDES is beginning to explore is transitioning women farmers working in conventional farming to sustainable agriculture. AFEDES has already participated in visiting sustainable agriculture projects, supported by FUNDEBASE, in San Martín Jilotepéque to start putting together a plan that will gradually support this transition.

AFEDES’ Health Program has added an interesting focus. AFEDES carried out a needs assessment survey to identify what services were in demand from its health program. Unfortunately, there was high response from women suffering from domestic violence. The women requested AFEDES work with men, to help change their attitudes. AFEDES knew that organizing a meeting for men would be difficult, so instead they targeted the one place where they knew men will always go, church. Women who responded to the survey would say, "My husband will hit me and then he'll go straight to church" or "My husband doesn't show up for household chores, but will loyally go to church." As a result, AFEDES is starting to build conversations with many fathers and priests in different communities to talk about this issue and are planning a religious/spiritual course with a woman's perspective, as most rural women are faithful religious practitioners.

In addition, AFEDES is also becoming involved with reported sexual violence cases by providing resources and support to women victims. AFEDES staff accompanies the women victims to the police, justice hall and anywhere they need to go to pursue their case.

Their newest program, Education and Training for Personal Development is in its inaugural year. It offers more formal training to AFEDES staff, Board members, and group leaders. Planned themes for this training are women's rights and cultural and ethnic identity, among others.

This year is marking a new chapter for AFEDES, where the goal is to stimulate women's empowerment. It's exciting to see where this will lead AFEDES and how this change will impact women in the communities of Sacatepéquez in the next few years.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia

Bagels in Guatemala City

Katherine Zavala, IDEX's Coordinator of Programs is traveling again. This time Katherine is visiting our partners in Guatemala: AFEDES, APROSADSE, and ISMU. Catch up with her news on our blog.

Sunday, April 13

Today I arrived at Guatemala City to start my two-week site visit trip to visit three of IDEX partners in Guatemala. I was quite the zombie, as I had taken the traditional red-eye flight from San Francisco to Central America. The airport at Guatemala was a shock as it has been largely expanded since the last time I was here and it took forever to get to the immigration stop. Being a zombie, I was so out of it that when I got to the immigration officer I had not filled any form (nor had I received them, as I was probably skipped by the flight attendant who hands out these forms because I was dead asleep!). Fortunately, unlike other immigration officers I know, the officer was nice and gave me a moment to fill everything in.

It was only 10am by the time I arrived at my Bed and Breakfast (B&B), which turned out to be very cozy and very clean. This is the first time I've stayed in this area, so I decided to check it out and walked to the nearest mall.

Hanging out at the mall wasn't really how I wanted to spend my first day in Guatemala. But there I was with my cappuccino and bagel.

Walking back to my B&B, I past some of the chain hotels and chain fast food restaurants. McDonalds was two blocks away from my B&B, so ultimately it became my place for dinner.

But in spite of all these American businesses, I can tell that I'm in a different environment. It's really nice to be back in Central America. I can't wait to visit our partners!

Microcredit in Chiapas

Katherine, with Toño, DESMI's Director

When I entered DESMI's office, I thought to myself, "I want to work here!" DESMI's office is in a beautiful colonial house with a huge garden, which they have owned since 1979. I knew several of DESMI's staff from my IDEX trip to Guatemala last year, so seeing them again felt like seeing old friends.

Sitting down with the staff on my office visit, DESMI taught me a lot about their programs, and specifically their microcredit program. DESMI works in 3 regional areas in Chiapas: North, South and Los Altos. Currently, they have one person managing each regional area but they are in a process of staff restructuring to see if there is a way to better facilitate the work in these areas by distributing the responsibility.

I found DESMI's microcredit program very interesting. DESMI's loan fund will only be distributed to collectives. The whole process from the moment the community applies for microcredit to receiving it may take 2 to 3 months, as DESMI wants to ensure that the microcredit they receive will guarantee success of their project. There hasn't been a case where DESMI has rejected an application. Instead, if something doesn't make sense or the application is not complete, DESMI's staff will take the time to visit the collective and work together on the application. Every first Monday of the month, DESMI's staff sits down together to look at all the applications. Since 2003, they have not received many applications.

DESMI expressed to me their excitement on the exchange trip they're doing next week together with K'inal Antsetik to visit IDEX's Guatemalan partners: AFEDES, APROSADSE and ISMU, as well as other organizations. They are planning to visit AFEDES' Weavers' Store in Santiago Sacatepequez and APROSADSE's agricultural program in Chimaltenango.

DESMI is hoping to learn especially how these organizations work with gender issues into their programs, since DESMI is also initiating their own workshops on masculinity. These exchange trips, organized by IDEX partners themselves, came about during IDEX's regional conference in Antigua, Guatemala in January 2006. IDEX's partners decided they wanted to exchange experiences as they saw that they all were facing similar challenges although living in different political and cultural contexts.

IDEX has been a long supporter of DESMI and it's easy to see why. DESMI is continually working to become more efficient in their site visits, training and in being more aware of the needs of the communities. DESMI is currently working on developing a monitoring and evaluation plan to ensure they are achieving the objectives they have set themselves to accomplish."It hasn't been successful yet, to be honest," Toño, DESMI's Director tells me, "but we are doing our best to get this plan together because we want to make sure that DESMI is working well to improve the quality of life of these communities."

Kat