IDEX CSD Grantees
Photo: Julie Rinard
Several CSD grantees provide education for women and youth
IDEX CSD Grantees Update
IDEX took on the CSD Program from the Seva Foundation in September 2009. Learn more.
Since then we have had a number of positive lessons from the experience. In the coming months we will be evaluating CSD grantees to see if any have potential to become Catalyst Grantees.
Guatemala
Asociación AGUA
Asociación AGUA is a Guatemalan NGO that offers low-cost, high quality, locally appropriate water systems throughout the country. The Community Self-Development Program has partnered with Asociación AGUA since 2000 in the northernmost Petén region of Guatemala to install potable water systems in Mayan Q'eqchi communities that count on little to no infrastructure. Most communities were settled within the past 15-20 years, as Mayan communities from neighboring Alta Verapaz migrated north in search of cheap land and to escape the violence of the country's civil war. Since the beginning of the partnership, access to potable water has been secured for thousands of people.
During 2010, Asociación AGUA is working with another Community Self-Development Program partner in Alta Verapaz (ACODEF) to complete feasibility studies in 6 communities. Upon completion of the technical studies, the results will be disseminated to community members and future construction will be prioritized.
Asociación Comunitaria para el Desarrollo de Fray Bartolome de las Casas (ACODEF)
Asociación Comunitaria para el Desarrollo de Fray Bartolome de las Casas (ACODEF) was established in 2003 as a community-based organization working to improve the quality of life for 24 Mayan Q'eqchi communities in Alta Verapaz. To date the group has launched gender equity, adult education (especially for women), and community health programs in the communities it serves.
In addition, the women's group affiliated with ACODEF (Community of Women of Santa Maria-COMCASMA) has secured micro-credit to purchase basic grains, conducted trainings on participation in local community development councils, secured materials for improved housing, and worked with local midwives. A highly successful women's literacy program is also being conducted in 10 communities in their native Q'eqchi in partnership with local NGO, the Institute for Radio Education.
Asociacion de Mujeres Ixqik
Ixqik is an organization in the northernmost Petén region of Guatemala that has worked tirelessly on behalf of women since its inception in 1999. In Guatemala discussion of domestic violence is taboo and few resources exist to help women and girls prosecute their perpetrators. Ixqik has served as an information hub, provided a safe place for victims to turn to in times of crisis, and strengthened the base for building a stronger feminist movement in the region.
Asociación Integral Comunitaria de Comadronas y Promotores de Salud (ASICOPROS)
Asociación Integral Comunitaria de Comadronas y Promotores de Salud (ASICOPROS) is a community-based organization of midwives and health and dental promoters that was established in 1999 in the northern Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. The founding group arrived in an area known as Nuevo Porvenir upon their return from 15-years in Mexico as refugees during the Guatemalan civil war. Due to the upheaval of the war however, a variety of ethnic groups now live in the region. Today, the group attends to the health needs of 25 communities in the municipalities of Cobán, San Pedro Carcha, Chisec, y Cahabón. In addition to providing direct services to these communities and maintaining a community pharmacy, 7 community first aid kits, and a dental clinic, members of ASICOPROS regularly offer trainings to community health workers and other community health advocates.
Fundación ProPeten
Fundación ProPeten is a nongovernmental organization in the Petén region whose work focuses primarily on sustainable development. ProPeten has a 10-year+ legacy of offering highly skilled technical and mentoring support to organizations working to protect the delicate eco-systems of the region and facilitate participatory development processes. A project is currently underway with ProPeten to identify and train community-based organizations that are well positioned to manage sustainable development programs in the region in the future.
Pop Noj Asociacion AGUA
Pop Noj is a Guatemalan NGO working to incorporate indigenous culture and cosmovisión into community development work and political organizing. Pop Noj is currently leading a 4-year initiative in 2 micro-regions of the Petén (El Naranjal and Aguacate) to incubate a newly-forming community-based organization. This region of Guatemala counts on access to very few government services, and land quality has deteriorated significantly in recent years as inappropriate agriculture and cattle ranching have led to massive deforestation. The deforestation has limited available water supply and led to unprecedented levels of flooding due to erosion in recent years.
The initiative is largely focused on leadership development and local advocacy as a means for strengthening the defense of land rights and moving forward with grassroots development. Pop Noj is providing key on-the-ground accompaniment to communities in these micro-regions to strengthen community-led planning and decision-making processes and providing support for prioritizing needs and valuing existing local assets.
Mexico
Acompañamiento a Migrantes y Refugiados Ignacio de Loyola (AMYRILAC)
AMYRILAC works with internally displaced and migrant communities in the Mexican state of Chiapas. AMYRILAC supports education, health promotion, and human rights through direct service and advocacy programs in rural areas.
AMYRILAC coordinates educational programs for Mayan women and youth who have been unable to complete their studies due to political violence, displacement, and gender discrimination. The program that targets youth is designed to include high levels of participation, and students who complete their studies are encouraged to volunteer in the classroom to support their peers. The long-term goal of the program is to decrease youth migration to urban centers and strengthen cultural identity by connecting advanced education to community responsibility. The group also works with a women’s group that is in the initial stages of developing a savings collective and a community store that sells basic goods.
AMYRILAC provides technical assistance and mentoring support to Las Abejas. Las Abejas is a pacifist community-based organization in the Highlands of Chiapas that has struggled to combat discriminatory practices against indigenous people since 1992. Today, the group continues to speak out against impunity in Mexico as it seeks to bring to justice to paramilitary forces that massacred 45 people in the community of Acteal in December 1997.
Centro de Educacion Integral de las Bases (CEIBA)
The main project of this collective of popular educators was designed to provide educational, networking, and organizational support opportunities for community groups throughout the Chiapas region.
CEIBA is grounded in the principles of popular education. Popular education is a broad-based approach to social change that seeks structural transformation from the grassroots. CEIBA is used for a variety of popular education activities that respond to the technical and strategic requests of groups in the region. Through long-term partnerships with community-based groups and members of the nongovernmental organizations and academic communities of Chiapas alike, CEIBA offers support with workshops, meetings, and planning tools that are designed especially for each audience.
For example, this year CEIBA will partner with Hogar Comunitario Yach’il Antzetic. They will design and conduct a needs assessment to determine current access to information about sexual and reproductive health. Their focus will be the highland municipalities with the highest incidence of unplanned pregnancies in the state. The findings will be used to design future programs for single mothers at Hogar Comunitario.
Thanks to a partnership with Otros Mundos, CEIBA also houses a demonstration site. This features eco-technologies that can be installed in rural communities. These eco-technologies simultaneously combat climate change and promote self-management through the use of locally available materials for construction. Demonstration features include low-cost solar panels, compostable latrines, rainwater catchment systems, and more.
Hogar Comunitario Yach'il Antzetic
In June 1997 Yach’il Anzetik was founded in San Cristobal de Las Casas as a home for indigenous women migrating to the city in hopes of a better life.
Many of the women who find refuge in Yach’il Anzetik have been excluded from their families for carrying an illegitimate child. As single women, others are refused access to land and have little means to earning a living in the rural communities. Yach’il Antzetik was created with the philosophies of “love and respect for life” and “the woman is the subject of her own history”. It is a safe haven for single mothers who have found themselves in a life of loneliness and without protection.
Yach’il Anzetik offers psychological, medical and social support, as well as literacy and education programs. Yach’il Anzetik works closely with Seva Partner Luna Maya to ensure care during pregnancy and safe childbirth. It also gives women access to training programs and helps them find a job. Yach’il Anzetik offers a program called TRAMA, in which women participate in pottery and textile workshops. Through TRAMA, the women are able to create sellable products and learn to be self-dependent.
All programs at Yach’il Anzetik are aimed at empowering single mothers. Culturally, indigenous women have been assigned a role that revolves around reproduction and maternity. This leaves aside both their personal development and gives no consideration to their rights. Yach’il Anzetik creates a community where women have a voice and can be heard.
Luna Maya
Luna Maya Birth Center was formed in 2005, to improve the wellbeing of women and families through safe pregnancy and birth. The Seva Foundation provided the first seed funding to Luna Maya as early as 2004 when the vision for the center was in its infancy. Luna Maya functions on the premise that women have the right to make informed choices about their bodies and have access to the necessary resources to ensure health and wellbeing.
Luna Maya works with traditional midwives in both the urban center of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and in the rural, indigenous regions. Luna Maya’s training of traditional midwives to identify risks and collaborate with local health promoters for timely referral of women to hospitals or health centers has been fundamental in lowering maternal morbidity and mortality in target regions.
Otros Mundos
Otros Mundos is an institution doing cutting-edge work to protect natural resources in the state of Chiapas. Their work includes a combination of advocacy work and training for communities seeking practical solutions to the challenges of protecting their natural resource base. In recent years, Otros Mundos has identified a growing need to raise awareness about the problems associated with environmental degradation in Southern Mexico. In late 2007, a successful forum for Water and Energy was convened, which took a multi-disciplinary and accessible approach to exploring the diverse causes and effects of modern-day development practices.
To provide a more coordinated response to these environmental challenges, the Popular Water and Energy School (EPAE) was launched to support the sustainable use and management of water, energy and agro-forestry in the indigenous, rural and urban communities of Chiapas, improving living conditions and reducing the negative impacts of climate change.
Curriculum modules include water basin management and planning, water collection systems, water treatment and filtration, ecological latrines, biodigestors, and solar energy. Throughout this year-long training program, participants contribute to the betterment of their communities by conducting community assessments and developing strategic activities to improve local living conditions. Upon graduation from the training program, participants receive a Popular Degree in Water and Energy or recognition as a Popular Water and Energy Technician. Participants are expected to continue social and community work upon completion, utilizing the skills they learned at EPAE to propose solutions and develop sustainable programs in their communities.
Parteros and Parteras of Nichim Dios
Nichim Dios is group is an association of midwives and traditional healers in the municipality of Las Margaritas, an area deep within the Lacandone Jungle that borders Guatemala. Within this area, there are many communities with very few inhabitants. Due to the remote nature of these communities, the state of Chiapas has not built hospitals or clinics and traditional healers, health workers and midwives provide most health care.
Nichim Dios is comprised of 25 men and women mostly of Mayan Tojolabal descent. The group initially organized to promote training opportunities for midwives and healers and to gain respect and recognition for the knowledge base they offer in service to their communities. Today, they continue their work to gain respect and recognition for their vocation through a grassroots advocacy campaign.
Blog
Girls Amplify Their Voices Through Technology
Friday, January 13, 2012
Katherine Zavala – IDEX’s Program Manager, Grassroots Alliances – reports back on a recent trip to South Africa where she visited IDEX Catalyst Grantee Women’s Net.