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
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
Labels: AFEDES, Guatemala, weaving
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
Labels: AFEDES, Guatemala, microcredit
Last night I was so tired that I went to sleep really early, unfortunately I also had to wake up early, even though it was Saturday! This was my last day to visit communities with APROSADSE.
Our first visit was with a group called Women in Action (Mujeres de Acción) - who have been receiving microcredit loans from APROSADSE for quite some time now. On IDEX's last trip to Guatemala, I had visited this group, and some of the women recognized me! I sat down to talk about their work and how they feel about their participation in the group.
Many of the women here are new members, but five of them have been in the group since the beginning. Most of them are working individually with chicken-raising projects. Talking with them, the women offered several comments about their projects and how grateful they are to be in a group where they can share their problems and accomplishments and have support from one another.
Maximiliana, who is 47 years old and married with nine children, explained her biggest challenge was finding affordable chicken feed. This echoed comments given by a group member from the community of Chi Armira. Berta, whose project is quite big as she has 1,000 chickens, says that she's a bit worried now because some of her chickens seem to be getting ill and she needs to have a vet check them out.
Other stories were more positive like Maria Julia's story. Maria Julia has had great success with her egg-laying hens and now sells eggs in her community. She was invited to join the group by her mother-in-law and now she is the vice-president of the group, even though she has only been with the group two years. Being vice-president has encouraged her to speak up more and see that she can be one of the leaders of the group. Like today for example. The president of the group was unable to be present because she was studying, this allowed Maria Julia to open the meeting and introduce the group members.
Maria Julia's mother-in-law, Maria Elena, is one of the five women who started the group Women in Action. She's also had success raising chickens and local varieties of turkey. During Christmas time she can sell her turkeys at a high price and earn a good income from those sales. As a result Maria Elena has bought a cow that is providing her family with milk. Ever resourceful she also uses the chicken's waste to make organic fertilizers for her plot of agricultural land. I visited her at her home and on my way noticed the local primary school Los Pi ños Xesuj, also supported by APROSADSE, only through its education program.
After talking with the women, I said my thank you's and good-bye's and went on to my next visit.
I was driven on a long, unused road down to a small valley where I would meet Hector and the land where he cultivates his tomatoes, beans and corn. When I met Hector, he was approaching me with two boxes filled with tomatoes on his back, only supported by a cloth that was wrapped around his forehead.
I looked to see where Hector was coming from and was shocked. He had climbed up a narrow path along the edge of a cliff, where one false step could have lead to a horrible fall. Balance was hard enough to maintain with my own purple purse - can you imagine with two boxes of tomatoes tied to your head?
Hector showed me how he is transitioning to organic farming as he learned that it is both cheaper and more sustainable in the long run. He said to me,
"APROSADSE has been the one to show and teach me about organic agriculture and they've supported me with my first microcredit to invest in this project. I'm working hard to achieve my dream of having my own land to be able to support my family well and pay the education of my children. I also want to help contribute to community projects such as the school. I believe that we should support our community in any small way, because that is how we can improve our living situation."
There is a river that runs by his land and as a result, Hector has free access to water that helps to reduce his farming costs. I needed to cross the river to see his other land. Fortunately, the river was low since it is the dry season. I remembered the river scene from Into the Wild and I thought to myself, "I hope I can cross back." If I couldn't, then I guess I wouldn't have minded. The place was beautiful, surrounded by tall, green pine trees and dappled sunlight. Some of the pine trees had been carefully trimmed in order to allow sunlight to shine through to the land. Combined with the music of the river flowing by, it created a peaceful world away from the buses and typical urban noise.
It was a good way to end my field visits with APROSADSE.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
Labels: Agroecology, APROSADSE, Guatemala, microcredit
I visited two communities today, El Carmen and Chi Armira, that both work with APROSADSE's Agroecology Program. They were both groups that had received microcredit from APROSADSE for the first time.
The first group is based in the small community of El Carmen in the village Varituc. There are 30 families that live in this community. The community is about 20 minutes by car from APROSADSE's office in San Martín Jilotepéque, the nearest town, making it quite isolated. Varituc has a reputation for migration. A lot of its men have migrated to the United States in search of better opportunities for their families. This is a profound loss as not only does this break up families, but the remaining family usually has a debt to pay, which are the fees for the husband to leave.
We met a group of 13 women who were participating in APROSADSE's programs. Four of them received microcredit for a cow-raising project. Patrociña was the one who spoke the most and at one point said, "Please excuse my fellow women peers, who are too shy to talk today."
Patrociña has a very optimistic personality. You wouldn't think that she was missing her husband. He left ten months ago, leaving her behind with their five children to find more opportunities to sustain his family from the United States. Patrociña is one of the two women who go to APROSADSE to attend the health training workshops. They come back to share what they learn with the rest of the group. Patrociña says she has benefited from the cow-raising project since it has helped pay for her children's education and has provided milk for them to drink.
In the next community of Chi Armira, we visited a group income-generating project that is raising 600 egg-laying hens. Chi Armira is much closer to San Martín Jilotepéque and so people have access to the local market. This group of four members has been working with this project for a while, initially another organization was supporting them and there were 13 people in the group. But most women left after the first year because their husbands didn't allow them to work with the group because it required too much of their time. Who would cook them dinner?
The President of this group has been on her own with her two children for ten years since her husband left for the United States. She mentions how her husband wouldn't like to see her working with a group but she likes it, so she's doing it anyway. They have had challenges with this project because the cost of the chicken feed is very high right now. They're hoping to sell the hens in three or four months to earn income, which they will reinvest in the project.
As we walked towards the chicken coop I saw a mother hen with lots of chicks everywhere running around. I tried to pick one of them up to check how they were doing but they ran so fast. The mother hen was did a good job protecting them and it became quite a challenge. But when the coast was clear I caught one! They were very healthy. One of the group members said I could take two of them with me, but I told her it might be hard to take chicks with me on the plane.
Clearly the APROSADSE’s Agroecology Program offers communities an opportunity to enhance community’s nutrition, develop agroecology skills and improve income for their families.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
Labels: Agroecology, APROSADSE, Guatemala
I left Guatemala City today to travel 1 hour into the highlands to the state of Chimaltenango where I wended up a long winding road to San Martín Jilotepéque. I was visiting APROSADSE, an organization that IDEX has been supporting for over 3 years now, and who has focused its programs on health, education and agroecology. When I arrived, I was invited to talk with 3 of APROSADSE's Board members to discuss the work of APROSADSE and the Board’s participation.
It's Nicomedes second year of being President of APROSADSE Board, but he has been participating in their programs for 25 years! A married man with 3 daughters, Nicomedes recognizes the positive impact APROSADSE has had on him. As a child he only finished fourth grade before he had to find work to help support his family. When he was a grown adult, he saw that APROSADSE was offering a long-distance education program for people over 15 years old to finish primary and secondary education. He took the opportunity and completed his secondary education. He's happy that he completed that education program and now he works as one of the health promoters in his community.
Perfecta and Marta were the two other Board members present, one a midwife and the other a health promoter, like Nicomedes. Marta, a single mother, was also inspired to participate in the long-distance education program, but only completed the 7th grade "due to circumstances of life," However, her training in health, provided by APROSADSE, was enough to help her find a job as an assistant nurse in a health clinic in Antigua, a popular tourist spot relatively close to Chimaltenango. Now she has returned to San Martín Jilotepéque to work with the Ministry of Health. What does she do there? Well, there is only one doctor who travels once a month to her community. They are called mobile doctors. For the rest of the month Marta is the doctor in her community.
Perfecta hasn't been able to go to school. Instead, she has been focusing on her work as a midwife to her community in the village of Varituc. As a Board member, she comes to all the training workshops that APROSADSE offers including health and agroecology. The health trainings have really helped the quality of her work as midwife. She received a midwife kit that APROSADSE distributed through their health program, which she is grateful for because now she has the proper tools to do her job.
Two years ago, when IDEX visited APROSADSE, the health program was just restarting (after a long period of hiatus) and served only 22 communities. Now they help 130 communities. Almost all the communities within San Martín Jilotepéque! Last year they trained 80 health promoters and 66 midwifes. In addition, they offered training in nutrition to 18 groups of 270 participants from the communities. They've been also strengthening their relationship with San Martin's health center to serve many more people in the town. One of the things that impressed me was that they remodeled their warehouse in the basement into a day care center so that the mothers can bring their children to APROSADSE's office when they want to attend training.
Not only a midwife, Perfecta is able to help her community with livestock rearing and some agriculture projects. Even though she does not work in agroecology herself, she can still help community members due to her knowledge that she acquired by attending to the agroecology workshops at APROSADSE. Last year, APROSADSE was able to train 22 agroecology promoters from 13 communities. Agroecology focuses on livestock rearing and transitioning from conventional farming to organic farming. APROSADSE also has a veterinary store at their office, which serves 416 people from 32 communities in curing animals, providing treatment and selling medicine at affordable prices.
In addition to the long-distance education program that Nicomedes and Marta participated in, APROSADSE has a scholarship program. They gave scholarships to 137 students last year to study primary and secondary education. Another activity APROSADSE carries out is a "summer" program (summer here is from October to December) to 181 secondary school students, giving classes on a range from subjects such as environment, micro-enterprise and sexual transmitted diseases. Like FUNDAESPRO, APROSADSE also involves the parents, and have met with 80 parents 10 times last year to talk about different subjects such as nutrition, environment, interpersonal relations, pregnancy, etc.
Through their agroecology program APROSADSE implements a microcredit initiatives, where they promote group savings and facilitate monthly technical assistance to each group. When APROSADSE distributes microcredit to a group, it does it in one of two ways:
1) Provide microcredit to a group for a group income-generating project; or
2) Provide microcredit to a group, but for individual income-generating projects.
APROSADSE also supports individual microcredit outside of a group, these are approved by the Board. They target community members who can't form a group in their community yet want to receive a microcredit to carry out an agroecology related income-generating project, usually after attending APROSADSE's workshops. One of the great things about APROSADSE is that their workshops are open to everyone, and that's how many people come to learn about APROSADSE's other programs.
These are not all the activities that APROSADSE is carrying out, but already this can show how they've grown since the last time that IDEX visited them. I'm looking forward to meeting the people that benefited from these programs when I start my community visits tomorrow.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
Labels: Agroecology, Education, Guatemala, Health, ISMU
I woke up early today to visit a community near the city of Patulul in the state of Escuintla, about 2 hours southwest of Guatemala City. ISMU was taking me to a community called Canton Luciana where around 145 families were living near a latex rubber plantation.
ISMU was invited to come to the community to carry out a needs assessment survey to see where they can best support these families. The two crucial areas that needed to be addressed the most was the improvement of housing and health issues.
A previous government program had started training 5 women in this community to become health monitors. However, the government program only trained them in children's health, and not any of the diseases that afflicted adult community members such as diarrhea and respiratory health issues that could be prevented. As a result, ISMU coordinated a series of preventative health workshops to train health monitors. Trainings included a practical workshop to make herbal shampoos, creams and cough syrups.
ISMU also organized the visit of an expert to come to the community to teach and facilitate themes requested by the community such as conflict resolution.
For the longest time there was a conflict between two families that had been a caused by a community member's chicken trespassing to the neighbor's garden to eat some flowers. No one knew the origin of this conflict until the conflict resolution workshop. By facilitating the discussion the community members learned how to express themselves better and resolve these conflicts sooner rather than later.
Another requested topic to be addressed was sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS. In most communities in Guatemala, HIV/AIDS is still a taboo subject. When someone dies of HIV/AIDS, people will usually not reveal the true cause of death. Instead, they'll say the person died of severe bronchitis, or any other illness that exacerbated the HIV/AIDS patient. The health monitors did request specifically to have this theme be taught separately for a group of women, men and youth.
These talks in general were considered a success, as more than 100 people attended each session. The session with the worst turnout still attracted 75 people. More people would have come, but it was raining. After these sessions, the health monitors follow-up with private conversations with the community members to see if they had more questions or comments about the topic.
ISMU also addressed was the housing improvements. ISMU hired an architecture to design blueprints for a 42 meter squared house that was both affordable and utilized as much space as possible. ISMU then coordinated with FONAVI (National Fund for Housing in Guatemala) to fund this project. FONAVI finally agreed to provide funding but had some strict requirements including collecting paperwork of each family who wanted to be part of this project. At first, the community members didn't believe that this project would happen and didn't bother to get their paperwork together. But once they saw many families applying, people started to find their paperwork. As a result ISMU improved a total of 91 houses.
One curious requirement that FONAVI asked for was that the roof of each of the new houses would be painted red, so that when the governor would fly on his jet plane, he could see all the houses he helped construct through FONAVI, and thus, feel proud of himself. Really, I'm not kidding!
Tomorrow I leave Guatemala City and head to the highlands to visit APROSADSE.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
Labels: Guatemala, Health, housing, ISMU
Today I visited 2 day-care centers supported by ISMU and one of its member organizations, FUNDAESPRO. Each day care facility is in high demand and caters to 30 children from 7am to 5pm.
The first one is located in Tierra Nueva, a community considered "high-risk" in terms of security and is suffering from a lack of access to potable water. Many of the single mothers in the community work in one of the maquiladoras in Guatemala City. The day care center has been essential for these mothers, as they can now leave the children in a safe space where they'll receive education, learn about hygiene habits and also be given a balanced meal.
Without the day care center, the parents have few alternatives and fear that without proper care their children could be exposed to abuse and gang violence that is unfortunately prevalent in some of these marginalized urban areas.
The parents recognize the importance of the day care center and on their weekends they are helping to remodel the kitchen. They are currently replacing the wooden walls with solid cement block walls, which will protect the kitchen equipment from theft. The day care center itself was made of wooden walls, but thanks to funds sent by IDEX, the walls are now built with cement blocks, which enhances safety and makes for better decoration inside the day care center.
The second day care center was located in Mezquital, a huge community in the marginalized areas of Guatemala City, near a popular bus station. The day care center is in front of a local market, making it nearly invisible among the crowds of people. I saw a man with a gun next to the entrance and I asked, "Does this place have its own bodyguard?"
"No, those are private bodyguards people hire when they want their car to be protected. It's very common for cars to be stolen here." An ISMU staff member replied.
We entered a beautiful pink room, where all the children were running around screaming with their fireman hats on. The day care center in Mezquital used to be very small and dark, but now I entered a large, spacious, well-lit room. IDEX supported this expansion, which now includes an extra room, bathrooms and a secure patio space.
Both day care centers are full of decorations and interactive toy "corners" where children can have access to an educational playtime. FUNDAESPRO has developed a manual to run these day care centers, which includes material for pre-primary education. There used to be no materials for this age group until FUNDAESPRO published this manual. They have now submitted this to the Ministry of Education, which recognized its value, reprinted it, and has made it accessible nationwide.
FUNDAESPRO ensures that parents are involved in their children’s educational and development, and invite the parents to meet once a month to discuss different issues these children can face, like domestic violence. FUNDAESPRO has seen the positive changes in the parent's attitudes. When they see the parents come to the first meeting, their usual comment is: "Feel free to hit my child, if s/he is behaving badly." And FUNDAESPRO say, "No, that's not the way to treat a child." Over time, after the monthly meetings have run their course, the parents start getting more involved with the day care center and will help out, as the parents from Tierra Nueva did by spending their weekend time in remodeling the kitchen.
Once they're old enough to go to primary school, FUNDAESPRO will follow-up with that child until the third grade. In almost all the cases, these students are doing great and achieve good grades.
Just leaving the day care centers, one can see the harsh realities these children face every day with the lack of security and the bad infrastructure of the community. I feel so grateful that people are on the lookout for these children, and are ensuring that they are getting a real chance to enjoy their childhood, as free as they can.
Photo Credit: Marlon Garcia
Labels: day-care, Guatemala, ISMU
Today, I went to visit one of IDEX's oldest partners, ISMU, based in Guatemala City. ISMU works with 22 communities from 7 regions/states, benefiting around 35,000 people. ISMU was founded in 1992 to strengthen community-based organizations in marginalized urban areas by building community organizational skills, encouraging active participation in the communities and stimulating leadership among community members. In this way, ISMU has allied itself with several community-based organizations that are now known as ISMU's member organizations. Now ISMU has grown its impact over 15 years later, focusing on 4 different areas: job training, education, community capacity-building and housing.In the morning I met with ISMU staff and current Board Members. Each Board Member represents a different member organization and they, together with the staff, took turns in updating me on ISMU programs.
Last year, ISMU went through a strategic plan phase where they analyzed their strengths, weaknesses and their overall work in the communities. During this process, the Board Members would meet once a week (twice, if needed) to go over the programs together. Due to these regular meetings, the Board members became more united and were encouraged to become more involved in ISMU's work.
ISMU's Job Training program focuses on supporting small community business initiatives in different ways. One example is the training ISMU offers to community members, particularly women, to learn a simple skill that will help them make a product from home and can generate income. One of the Board Members is the trainer of the arts and crafts training program, where she just finished training 40 women on creating handmade cards. This training was hugely successful as women were able to start selling cards in time for Valentine's Day. Not only that, 10 of the women have replicated this training with other women in their communities.
Another way ISMU supports this program is through its microcredit program. ISMU has 55 people from 5 community groups actively participating in this program. ISMU provides a microcredit loan to each group member and supports the group by meeting with them once a month to offer training or to facilitate discussions on different themes such as self-esteem, conflict-resolution and adolescent issues, among others. Even though there is a peer-support approach for each group to repay the microcredit, each member is responsible for going to the bank to deposit their loan repayment. Thus, ISMU staff doesn’t collect the money, just the deposit slips. In this way, it builds responsibility and ownership among the group members.
In its Education program, ISMU is supporting almost 200 students from over 13 communities with scholarships. These scholarships cover tuition fees, school supplies, uniforms and transportation fees for those who live very far away from their nearest schools. ISMU shared with me that their scholarship program is different to the traditional scholarship, as they're not given based on good grades, but on the families' harsh living conditions of extreme poverty. So they don't want the program to be just about completing each child's studies, but to also integrate it with youth development activities to address challenges these students face in their daily lives once they leave school and go back home.
After the strategic planning phase, a new project emerged for ISMU's Community Capacity-Building program, which is to develop a group of monitors. The monitors will be community members representing one of ISMU's programs in one of the communities where they work. These monitors will be the link between ISMU and the communities. ISMU realized that one of its weaknesses was not being able to best identify the needs of the communities, and thus, the monitor will be trained and encouraged to detect these needs to then work together with ISMU to address this issue. Bringing this group of monitors together will facilitate a space and moment for all to exchange information, ideas and share suggestions to best address the challenges in their communities.
Last, but not least, ISMU is hoping with their Housing program to improve the living conditions of families living in extreme poverty. When ISMU goes into the communities, one of the issues they evaluate are housing conditions. ISMU met with Catalina Mendoza from the community of La Verbena who lives in a 3 by 3 meter square room, just enough space to fit a bed. How many people live in that room? You ask. Five people! When ISMU heard about this situation, they started working with community members on how to improve it, and are currently negotiating with Catalina's neighbors to allow them to extend her space onto their lands to give her a better living condition. This is just one of many examples of how ISMU is impacting in their housing program.
In addition to these programs, ISMU is always finding ways to collaborate with different organizations to better support the communities. A recent collaboration with OXFAM GB and ESFRA has ISMU focusing on responses to natural disasters. Disaster relief often overlooks a plan for rehabilitation. Once the disaster has struck and the victim is out of immediate danger, there is no process to rehabilitate and support that person to rebuild his or her life. ISMU is hoping to change that by providing the appropriate training to different community members who can lead this response in the event of a disaster.
ISMU's work isn't easy at all. On top of that, ISMU staff risk their lives by traveling to these communities, as the security in Guatemala has worsened in the past few years. But ISMU feels strongly about continuing its work in these areas because these communities need the most support. And in spite of all the dangers, one can sense that this has not stopped the community members from working hard to improve their lives and that of their children.
Katherine 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!
Labels: AFEDES, APROSADSE, Guatemala, ISMU
IDEX is excited to announce that Betty Makoni, founder of Girl Child Network (GCN) in Zimbabwe has been awarded the 2008 Ginetta-Sagan Award for Women's and Children's Rights.“We are transforming victims into survivors, survivors into leaders. We help girls stand on their own feet and fight back against violence and exploitation.” Betty Makoni.
Since we first started supporting Betty and GCN, IDEX has been inspired by her work. It was a great honor for IDEX to nominate Betty for this award and even greater pleasure to know that her work and that of GCN is being so widely recognized.
This prestigious award, overseen by Amnesty International, comes at a time of even greater uncertainty in Zimbabwe. The results of the Zimbabwe Presidential election still undeclared nearly 2 week after the election and growing tension in the country.
Amnesty International has organized An Evening With Betty Makoni on April 23, 2008 at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. If you wish to attend, please RSVP by April 18 with Katia Roux on (415) 252-1750, ext. 203.
Labels: Betty Makoni, GCN