Boosting Education to build Resilience in Chiapas

by Cooperación Comunitaria A.C.

Boosting Education to build Resilience in Chiapas

Summary

Thanks to the alliance with the Jcananotic, a tseltal group of peasants, this project seeks to increase the resilience of 1,200 people in Chiapas. This will be achieved through the social production of 2 community centers to strengthen education; 15 rainwater harvesting systems; 7 dry toilets; 10 agroecological orchards. These implementations will serve to generate locally adapted solutions and train promoters who can replicate the process and expand the impact.

$20,000
total goal

$12,821
remaining

63
donors

4
monthly donors

1
year

Challenge

People live in extreme poverty, in precarious housing spaces, and with strong educational lags. The environment is damaged by the use of agrochemicals and deforestation. The local Mayan population is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which has altered the rainy cycles, lengthening the dry periods, which implies a shortage of springs. The population is losing the knowledge that allowed them to maintain the ecological balance. Women are excluded from the conventional educational.

Solution

The Jcananotic group is made up of 75 Mayan peasants, trained to teach other peoples to care for the land and territory with the peasant-to-peasant education method. This method revalues the original identities, providing learning opportunities for people, and especially for women. Through the construction of community centers, they want to transmit their knowledge to the people and generate locally adapted solutions. The community centers are development drivers.

Long-Term Impact

Thanks to the alliance with Jcananotic and the joint work with the communities, this project will allow 1,200 people from 6 communities to strengthen their knowledge on comprehensive management of socio-natural risks; recover and reinforce traditional knowledge and practices; rebuild the social fabric of the community and thus increase its resilience against the adverse effects of climate change. At the same time, they will be able to replicate the lessons learned and scale up the impact.