Sustainable Chicken Farm for Guatemalan Women

After last Sunday’s elections in Guatemala, the top presidential candidates are heading for a run-off—and MADRE is working with our sister organization Muixil to make sure that Indigenous Mayan women’s voices are heard. With the MADRE support that you made possible, Muixil held voter education workshops for women in the geographically isolated region of El Quiche, to teach them about their opportunities for political participation.

Indigenous Peoples, particularly the Quiche region, were deliberately targeted with violence and human rights violations during Guatemala’s decades of civil war. Thousands of women and families were displaced. These communities have long been cut off from political decision-making, denied the education, resources and access to participate fully in elections.

In these voter education workshops, our partners at Muixil informed participants about each presidential candidate and their policy proposals. They provided Indigenous women with vital information about the documents they would need and the steps to take to cast their vote.

As Guatemala moves to elect a new president, women are organizing to make sure their needs are met and their demands are heard. Thank you for helping give them the tools to make their voices heard!

Photo Credit: MADRE

When MADRE staff recently traveled to Guatemala, we spent time with our sister organization MUIXIL, an Indigenous women’s group in the rural highlands. Since 2007, with your help, we have supported a women’s chicken farming project, helping to meet women’s need for sustainable income in deeply impoverished Indigenous communities. We’re happy to announce that the project is growing!  

With the generous support of MADRE members, we were able to send a contribution to MUIXIL, enabling them to purchase 48 baby chickens and the supplies to build new chicken coops. The chickens and coops will help create a new future for women and their families in three different communities. With the eggs, women can give their children protein-rich meals, selling extra eggs to raise money.

For one woman named Rosa, who never went to school because of turmoil caused by the decades-long civil war, the chickens have meant that she is able to break the cycle and send her own young daughter to school. "Because of the war I never went to school for even one day. My biggest hope now is that my daughter will finish school. I have the chickens from MADRE now and that means better food for my daughter. We get a little money from the eggs each week. I put it in my secret place and I use it to buy pencils and books for her. I know her life will be better."

Links:

• How a Chicken Can Send a Girl to School