Insights from Guatemala Site Visit – 2018

In January 2018, five Pangea women landed in Antigua, Guatemala to the familiar textile rich AirBnb where we have stayed before, five rooms around a lovely garden which lent itself to gathering in the evening to debrief the day. The site visit, a mere seven days, seemed much longer as we dove deep into the culture. ~Betsy Hale

This was a visit of deepening our knowledge about and connection with four grant partners that we have funded from 2 to 7 years. In addition to visits to known and trusted organizations, we learned about the ever-changing political, social, and economic context of the country from three individuals who had their fingers on the pulse of current Guatemala. We identified six organizations to consider for the future and met with each of them to gain a preliminary understanding of their work.

In the visits with our four grant partners, we noticed how they continue to make innovations in the services they offer to better respond to the needs of their communities. ASOGEN, an organization that addresses violence against women has opened one of the few shelters in Guatemala for women where they teach the women vocational skills. Women’s Justice Initiative also addressing violence against women through education and advocacy, is expanding their outreach and saturating rural Patzun with their services. In addition to providing workshops and accompanying women as they learn their rights, both organizations work on a systems level to strengthen the response of municipalities and to engage community leaders to confront cases of violence.

We introduced the directors of the two schools we support, Fundación Nueva Esperanza and AC Esperanza, different in their settings – one in rural Rabinal and the other in the urban jungle of Chimaltenango –yet both set themselves apart from mainstream schools with their values of “everybody up together.” Both schools integrate the arts, focus on strengthening cultural traditions, and model gender equity. Students at FNE apply their agricultural learning by farming at the school. Currently, they are developing systems to better capture rainwater and to cultivate plants that will withstand a changing climate.

With each of our grant partners, we observed the local knowledge and wisdom that drives their work. For example, Women’s Justice initiative convenes legal workshops under the guise of teaching handicrafts so that women are permitted to attend. ASOGEN uses midwives to identify women who may be abused and need help. FNE has made entrepreneurship a focus so that the students will learn to have an alternative source of income.

Pangea site visits provide the opportunity to deepen our connections with organizations and their leaders, to learn from ways that are not our own, and to ask together how we can improve our grant making practices.

To view the Guatemala 2018 Site Visit Photo Album