Posts Tagged ‘Enlace Civil’
I am sitting among the beautiful green trees and mountains. The sky is very clear today. You wouldn’t have guessed that the night before Hurricane Dean had gone over the Yucatan peninsula.
I am waiting to meet the Good Governance Council (Junta de Buen Gobierno) in the caracol (regional center) of Morelia. I came in the morning with a group of 4 staff members of DESMI. They have been invited to give workshops to community members in agroecology, organic fertilizers, cooperative management and cattle rearing. I am here with Rosaluz from Enlace Civil to meet the Council members that are in charge of the plan of production (focusing on food security and arts and crafts). IDEX is supporting specifically the group of women artisans who are starting an autonomous cooperative to build the capacity to market their textile products.
Each caracol has its own security commission, which receives every guest who enters the premises. They then make an appointment with the Council. I am already participating in this alternative governance system.
Right now it seems that there is a conflict that has occurred in a nearby municipality and it is taking the Council a long time to resolve. I might not get to meet the Council before lunch.
After some beans and tortillas…
The Council has received me and has asked me to explain the reason of my visit. They welcome me and tell me that this is my home too. They ask whether I have a space to spend the night and if I had eaten. It is nice to know that even though this is all a procedure that the communities have created, it feels like a genuine service to all people who enter this place.
I then went to meet a Commission of the plan of production, which includes IDEX’s support to the artisans cooperative. The Commission has just formed as the plan is too big and required a separate commitment by the Council. It was an interesting dialogue where I explained what IDEX was and they told me about their plans and hopes for this project.
From the meeting I could instantly tell that this was a project that has ownership amongst the people themselves. This project was planned and initiated by them and now they are building their capacity to see the project through with the support of Enlace Civil. It is a constant support that encourages professional development as Enlace Civil helps them administratively such as guiding the financial administrator to practice Excel to track the funds.
These people have been chosen by the communities to be in this commission and Enlace Civil is giving them the basic skills to govern their people and to help them improve their quality of lives.
You can’t come here and not feel that people have taken ownership of their own governance and that this is all done with the goal of providing a better future for their communities.
Next to the market of Santo Domingo, where many indigenous women are selling their crafts and textile products, I found the office of Enlace Civil.
Enlace Civil is an association that grew out of a request from the local communities in Chiapas in 1996 to become a link between them and the national and international civil society. Enlace has worked together with the formation of the Good Governance Councils (Juntas de Buen Gobierno), since 2003, to support the different projects/programs the communities have planned for themselves.
Contrary to many organizations I have visited, Enlace has a different system in supporting communities. Enlace itself does not implement, nor offer projects/programs to the communities. They consider themselves to be at the service of the communities. The communities have been running their own programs in health, education, economic development, etc. and these programs are then communicated to Enlace Civil so that they can support them administratively. The staff team of Enlace Civil have been mostly chosen by the Good Governance Councils themselves and they work voluntarily. Enlace exists to support the strengthening of this alternative governance to better address the needs of the communities.
I met with Rosaluz, the staff member responsible for the “caracol” (regional center) called Morelia. There are 5 main caracoles in Chiapas. The Good Governance Council in the Morelia caracol has 66 members (33 women and 33 men), where each week 11 members are rotated to be in charge of a program or project in the Council. Currently, these Council members in Morelia are in their third year. (Members are selected to be in the Council for a term of 3 years). Next year the Council will be receiving new members. To support the new members, Enlace Civil will facilitate training and follow-up visits with them to ensure that they have all the capacity to govern as the Council for the next three years.
After the first year, Rosaluz will continue to follow up with the Council members but no longer at such an intensive rate. One of the things she has supported after the first year has been the systemization of the Council’s evaluations and its organizational structure.
Rosaluz shared enthusiastically with me, “It’s actually been an exciting experience to do this because the structure envisioned is already in place. Many time, one writes about the vision of an organization that one wants to achieve. Well, in this case, the communities have already formed their vision over the years: the formation of their own government structure, so now I’m just writing down or documenting their own governance they have created.”
This week I will be accompanying Rosaluz to meet the Council members in the Morelia caracol and cooperative members within the communities. I’m looking forward to meeting them!
Kat
