Our Story
Voces y Manos was created as a sister organization of Fundación Nueva Esperanza (New Hope Foundation, or FNE), a Maya-Achí bilingual school providing bilingual education to children of the survivors of the Rio Negro massacres. Founded by graduates of FNE and their allies in the global North, the vision of Voces y Manos was to carry forward FNE’s historical struggles for dignified education, the right to health, and food sovereignty among the next generation of Maya-Achí youth leaders.
After 10 years of working in popular education and youth empowerment, Voces y Manos pivoted its work toward agroecology. By the early 2010s, the impacts of climate change on the Maya-Achí region had become dire. At the same time, record numbers of youth were emigrating from the region due to the scarcity of local jobs and the difficulty earning a living through farming.
To address these challenges, Voces y Manos developed an innovative model that provides young adults with jobs to strengthen their communities’ resilience to climate change. In 2025, Voces y manos por el buen vivir became a fully registered independent non-profit organization in Guatemala. It now provides jobs and internships to over 25 young adults who are promoting agroecology in over a dozen communities throughout the Maya-Achí territory.
Mission
Voces y Manos works to achieve Buen Vivir in the Maya-Achí territory of Guatemala by empowering youth to promote agroecology, revitalize Indigenous culture, and strengthen climate change resilience.
Vision
Voces y Manos envisions and works toward a world where food systems are healthy and just, ecosystems are restored, and Indigenous communities are thriving. Our vision is guided by the Indigenous philosophy of Buen Vivir, which involves living in sustainability and in balance with nature and with our human communities. It involves transforming an extractive food system — one which exploits the earth and the most vulnerable — into one grounded in ancestral knowledge and principles of reciprocity.
Theory of Change
All aspects of Voces y Manos’ work are guided by the philosophy of Buen Vivir, a vision of the “good life” or “the just society” that emerges from Indigenous communities of Latin America. Known as “Utzilaj K’aslemal” in the Maya-Achi language, its foundation is the sistema milpa, which integrates corn, beans, squash, herbs, and other native plants. Just as corn, beans, and squash give and receive nutrients in reciprocity, the philosophy of Buen Vivir is based on reciprocity among all living beings. It is a vision of social equality and balance in the social and natural world, and a philosophy to develop strategies that address problems at their root, revitalizing culture rather than attempting to change it.
As Mapuche tribe member and professor Diego Ancalao Gavilán writes, “Buen Vivir is, at the same time, a utopia and a true possibility. It is a utopia because it constitutes the dream of a different country [or world], one where diversity coexists under conditions of greater equity and an unconditional respect for Mother Earth. But it is also a true possibility, as the indigenous peoples lived under this precept for thousands of years. In truth, we are not coming to propose foreign ideologies. We are coming to propose what we really are.”
Guided by this vision of Buen Vivir, Voces y Manos’ theory of change consists of four caminos, or pathways, to Buen Vivir: (1) Advancing Promoting Food Sovereignty (2) Equipping the Next Generation (3) Protecting the Earth; (4) Action-research and Advocacy. This theory of change holds us accountable to communities’ life projects and vision of change. It keeps our hands engaged in meeting the immediate manifestations of social equality, and our voices strong in demanding fundamental transformations to injustices which produce inequalities in the first place. We work toward a world where resources are equitably shared, Indigenous cultures are sustained, and the environment —Madre Tierra — is protected.
