By Carlos Meza | Project Leader
Dear allies, it's a pleasure to greet you. We have new news to give you!
We continue to make progress in actions to empower Mayan girls and young women in Chiapas, in order to strengthen gender equality and prevent all types of violence against them. In the quarter from December 2022 to February 2023, these are the main actions that the Ch'ieltik team carried out thanks to your support.
YOUTH LEADERSHIP AND PARTICIPATION
During the months of November and December 2022, we worked with the youth initiative of Nuevo Huixtan Telebachillerato Comunitario “Clase 165”, made up of 13 students who created a cultural product to prevent gender violence. The short film they made was intended to make more young people reflect on the importance of eradicating the different types of violence that are exercised but at the same time identify what protection factors can be counted on if these situations arise at any time.
We also accompany the “Bolom-citos” youth initiative, of the Telebachillerato Comunitario 165, from the town of Nuevo Huixtan, in Las Margaritas, Chiapas. The students made a short film to prevent school dropout since it is estimated that in 2022 about 125 girls, boys and young people will drop out of school every day for reasons of poverty and social marginalization. This short was proposed to encourage more young people to continue their studies to obtain more tools that allow them to achieve their goals.
On December 6th. we held a Sports Meeting for women's soccer teams, in the community of Nuevo San Juan Chamula, in Las Margaritas. There was a participation of 102 youths who, in addition to celebrating soccer matches, carried out a campaign to highlight the importance of creating sports spaces for girls and young people. In this safe space for coexistence, great enthusiasm could be observed on the part of the girls to be part of nutritional dynamics for their physical and mental strengthening.
On December 8th. we held a Community Meeting in the town of Nuevo Huixtan with the participation of 64 students from the Telebachillerato Comunitario 165. In this space they presented their youth initiatives as well as their cultural products to the students, teachers and the community authorities, which led to a conversation to reflect on how to prevent gender violence and school dropout and, also, on how to strengthen youth leadership and open more spaces for participation for the Mayan girls and youth of Chiapas.
PREVENT AND ERADICATE GENDER VIOLENCE
In January 2023, we carried out two Awareness Workshops for bilingual primary and secondary teachers in the community of El Pozo, municipality of San Juan Cancuc, Chiapas. This Gender Violence Prevention Workshop addressed the following topics:
• Understand gender gaps
• Understand the forms and modalities of violence
• Prevent and eradicate violent behaviors
• Promote and implement protective factors in school classrooms.
These workshops were proposed to analyze the impact of gender violence, prevent violent behavior and implement protection factors in the classroom. As a starting point, the sociocultural and historical construction of how a man and a woman are perceived to act in the indigenous community context and what this implies was analyzed.
CHILD RIGHTS
At the Cuauhtemoc Bilingual Elementary School in El Pozo, San Juan Cancuc, Chis., a Good Treatment Workshop was held for 5th. grade students, with a participation of 13 girls and 10 boys. The purpose was to publicize the rights of children and the guarantors of those rights. This subject usually goes unnoticed by girls and boys because these issues are not addressed in depth or are not addressed in schools. In addition to this, there are no instances that provide information in indigenous communities.
PREVENT SCHOOL DROPOUT
We held the "Youth Participation and School Dropout" Conversation with "Hilando Redes" a women group from Chiloljá community, in San Juan Cancuc municipality, Chiapas. From the testimony and conversation about the problems experienced by the young people of this community, it was highlighted that, for the most part, they are not taken into account either in private or public spaces. They also discussed the impact that school dropout is having. Eight women participated in this activity, both adults and young people.
MAYAN YOUTH PARTICIPATION
On February 28th. Ch'ieltik guided our “Mesas Intersectoriales” held at the CECyTE 18 facilities in San Pedro Chenalhó, Chis., with the objective of articulating efforts between representatives of the CECyTE 18 Youth Committee and the EST 48, educational institutions and civil society organizations such as; ACAS A.C., Redias A.C. Cultural Winds A.C. and Cántaro Azul A.C. The purpose of this meeting was to motivate youth participation in the municipality, given the main problems it faces, such as; gender violence, early unions and marriages. One of the central discussions and analysis on the issue of youth rights is the constant clash of thought between the uses and customs of the community that makes it difficult to guarantee the rights of girls, adolescents and young people from the indigenous communities of Chiapas.
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