Where We Work

Guatemala

Guatemala lies in northern Central America, sharing a border with Mexico. It’s long history dates back to the early  Mesoamerican Tolmec, civilizations, which flourished for over 2000 years before the Spanish arrived. In the early 1500’s, Spain claimed the land and maintained it as a Spanish colony until Guatemala gained independence in 1821.
Despite the three century subjugation to European rule, the Mayan culture survived in Guatemala and continues to play an important role in the country today. There are 23 distinct Mayan sects, each with their own unique language and culture, and two other non-Mayan indigenous groups. The indigenous cultures tend to remain most prevalent in remote, rural areas of Guatemala, where Spanish influence was minimal. Depending on the location, residents of these regions may speak little or no Spanish, and spiritual life focuses on traditional Mayan practices, rather than the Catholicism prevalent in urban centers.

In 1954, during the height of the Red Scare in the United States, President Eisenhower sponsored a CIA program to oust Guatemala’s President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán who was suspected of having strong ties to the Soviet Union. Guzmán was replaced with a series of military leaders who oversaw a period of extreme socio-economic and racially motivated discrimination. Guatemala’s indigenous people are numerous but poor, and the policies enacted in the post-Guzmán regimes generated a wave of discontentment throughout the Mayan communities.  Among these policies, unequal distribution of land impoverished the Mayan people, and denied them self-sufficiency.  This disenfranchisement felt by the native population ultimately set the stage for Guatemala’s civil war, which erupted in 1960.

The Guatemalan civil war, lasting from 1960 to 1996, was the longest in Central American history.  Over 200,000 people were killed, including civilians and children. Although the civil war has been over for more than a decade, the legacy of the violence is still felt throughout Guatemala. To learn more about the Guatemalan civil war and its aftermath, click Here

Rabinal, Baja Verapaz

Rabinal is both a town and a municipality located in central Guatemala in the Department of Baja Verapaz. The area is predominately indigenous, with 81% of the population belonging to the Mayan group, the Achi. The area is known for its artisanship, particularly its beautiful pottery and painted gourds. UNESCO has also named the Baile de Rabinal Achi-a dance that recreates a battle between the Achi and K’iche-to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The economy of Rabinal is largely agricultural, with most farm land owned by individual families, as opposed to large companies.  The town of Rabinal is located in the center of the municipality, with rough dirt roads radiating out from the center to the surrounding mountainous villages. These villages (aldeas) are almost entirely indigenous and are far removed from most external resources.  Access to medical care is limited at best and so we have chosen these aldeas as the sites for our health fairs.

Physical remoteness is not the only difficulty facing aldea residents who are in need of medical care. Most are desperately poor, and while family farming provides some food, malnutrition is common. Lack of access to clean water is also a constant hardship. Houses in the aldeas have no plumbing and villagers lack the resources to adequately filter river water. Ingestion of bacteria and parasites from the river leads to an incredibly high incidence of diarrhea, which can be fatal to the youth and contributes to the malnutrition of young and old alike.

Rio Negro Massacres

The struggle and marginalization of the people of Rabinal is intimately connected with the region’s history in the civil war. In 1978, at the height of the conflict, the Guatemalan government began construction of a large hydroelectric dam across the Chixoy river in Rabinal. A group of indigenous communities were located on land that would be required for completion of the dam and so between 1980 and 1982, government paramilitary forces engaged in a series massacres and forced relocations of the native populations. These actions-which has since come to be known as the Rio Negro Massacres-were billed as a counterinsurgency activity against the indigenous guerrilla army. Despite numerous published accounts of the events however, no evidence has surfaced to suggest the existence of any opposing military group. The recent exhumation of mass graves has shown that a large number of those slain were women and children.

Jesus Tecú Osorio was young boy living in the village of Rio Negro when government soldiers came upon the settlement.  Osorio watched as his family and community members were raped, beaten and murdered, and Jesus himself was seized for domestic servitude. Osorio was released two years later, and after the war ended, he defied military coercion and spoke out about his experiences. Amidst death threats and other strong-arm tactics Jesus began legal proceedings against the officers who had overseen the massacre and held him prisoner. In 1996 Reebok honored Osorio with the Reebok Human Rights Award. Osorio used the $25,000 prize money to start Fundación Nueva Esperanza (The New Hope Foundation) which now operates a school in Rabinal and is our strongest partner organization.