Training Today's Youth to Create A Better Tomorrow
January 22, 2009
Sarstún, Guatemala
As part of our alliance with Fundación Ak’Tenamit in the Sarstún region of Guatemala, EcoLogic has successfully brought together a new group of young Maya-K’eqchi students to represent 16 communities near the border of Guatemala and Belize.
Through the education program of Ak’Tenamit, these youths are being trained as promoters of community development and sustainable ecotourism, all within a framework of gender equality and preservation of their cultural values and language. In cooperation with EcoLogic and with the interest of serving their communities, they have become qualified to protect their communities’ own natural resources.
As part of their training, they participated in an informational exchange with members of the Association of Water Committees of the Southern Sector of Pico Bonito National Park (AJAASSPIB), our partner organization in Honduras. Excited by their trip, the students wanted to replicate AJAASSPIB’s work to improve communities through protection of their watersheds. The exchange resulted in the formation of the youth association, called Mayan Association for Well-Being in the Sarstun Region (APROSARSTUN), whose mission is community-led sustainable development. The group of young representatives from the 16 communities elected a board of nine members – five women and four men – whose president is Ana Florinda Xol, a young K’eqchi woman in her final year of a four-year technical degree program in Community Development.
To increase its capacity, APROSARSTUN acquired legal recognition as a Guatemalan non-governmental organization at the end of last year. Such status will permit the group to manage its own community projects and the protection of natural resources for the Sarstún area communities. With EcoLogic’s help, the group will also carry out community consultations in each village, utilizing a participatory approach in order to generate a portfolio of sustainable development projects for the region.
Currently, the youth association has begun to implement a series of agroforestry projects that will improve food security of the communities through the cultivation of basic grains and other crops. These crops are being grown in alleys along with guama, a fast-growing native tree species that fixes nitrogen for use by crops, generates organic material for the soil, provides shade for crops, and offers other benefits that increase agricultural production. This plant also supplies firewood for use by the local people and creates increased forest cover for conservation of regional biodiversity. The youth association is also planning to protect vital water sources and they are planning to reforest degraded zones within the Sarstún River watershed.
Moreover, the K’eqchi communities on the Guatemalan side of the river are beginning to cooperate with those on the Belizean side through an alliance between the Sarstoon Temash Indigenous Institute for Management (SATIIM), Ak’Tenamit, and EcoLogic. This collaboration will ensure protection of precious natural resources within the shared binational drainage basin of the Sarstún River.
Student representatives meet to discuss community projects.