RISE:
A Challenge to Address Gender Based Violence in the Environment
The Community Forestry Association of Guatemala Utz Che’ (Utz Che’) is partnering with Trees, Water & People to implement the project in Guatemala: Tz’unun: Ending Environmental Violence Against Indigenous Women in Guatemala through Empowerment in Community Forestry, Agroecology, and Collective Healing Spaces. The project will be implemented with guidance of an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University with expertise in gendered dynamics of resource access and use.
This team is addressing gender-based violence (GBV) in community forestry in southern and eastern Guatemala, where natural resource conflicts are an extension of past and recurring injustices to rural communities, particularly to Indigenous women. Utz Che’ and its partners are working with 23 indigenous, multicultural, and campesino communities to empower 400 women through community forestry and agroecology. The partner is also providing collective healing spaces, which are spaces for women to share their experiences with GBV, receive guidance on how to identify specific GBV challenges, and collectively build solutions. This project is supporting women’s associations’ efforts to promote food sovereignty, economic entrepreneurship, and forest protection.
As the RISE program came to an end in 2022, TWP was able to rethink and reboot the gender-based violence project originally launched in 2021 through a USAID grant that empowered over 400 women in ten regions of Guatemala through collective examination of their contributions to their communities, new income generating opportunities through community forestry, agroecology, and collective healing, and by fostering safe spaces to speak out against violence and discrimination. When the project ended, the impact of these practices remained, but the local staff who had developed and implemented the project over 18 months could not find resources to continue their work. Recognizing the potential for this important work to continue, TWP re-engaged five leaders this past year and paid for them to receive a 9-month training course which will allow them to receive certifications that will give them the credibility to start their own consultancy. Through this consultancy, they hope to start designing and delivering gender-equity programs and workshops to continue developing their skills and services to benefit hundreds of Central American women.
Disclaimer: The views or positions on this website do not necessarily represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.
TWP had the privilege to host 13 of our partners and community leaders from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador at the first Mesoamerican Indigenous People and Local Communities Climate Week.