Educate Indigenous Women Leaders to Defeat Poverty

2018 is proving to be an exciting year in our pursuit of creating lasting communities of change in Mexico.

Since our last report,

• Women partners confirm again that our bottom-up oriented, rights-based work is right and good. 

• We launch multiple new initiatives, including our action-learning "Seed Fund" through which women's NGOs produce their inaugural projects by years end.

• PSYDEH impacts and is impacted by global partners Dentsu Aegis Network, Bank of America, GlobalGiving and their Social Impact Academy and American art student Olivia Taylor.

NATIVE WOMEN, OUR WORK IS RIGHT AND GOOD

Remigia Rivera, pictured above and the 32-year-old Otomí president of our partner NGO "Women With a Future", is one of 20 indigenous women leaders of a network of NGOs we incubate in 2018 with your crowdfunding investment. In recent workshops, Remigia and her peers, invited to share with folks like you around the world, offer comments like "I think we must invite all of our region's communities to our work. I enjoy what we learn with PSYDEH, especially recent workshops on how we can combat violence and pursue gender equality."

SUSTAINED IMPACT

Our free development work centers on strengthening women partners with knowledge on things like rights awareness and organizing training and support. In the summer/fall of 2018, this is translated into PSYDEH producing our (1) inaugural action-learning "Seed Fund" initiative, (2) innovative storytelling training, (3) embroidery investment project, and (4) conducting with women leaders a SWOT analysis of their NGOs while demonstrating the importance of organizational transparency. These actions double the return on your investment. One, you fund these actions. Two, these actions help to build the foundation from which women will launch their own actions in 2019. Two good impacts with one investment! 

GLOBAL PARTNERS

"We are stronger together" in pursuit of our good work. This mantra resonates with women partners confronting abandonment and isolation and it resonates with us, a small NGO working for paradigm changes in Mexico. Recent evidence of this truth includes how our:

• Route2Good partnership with the global Dentsu Aegis Network leads to new learning,

• business support initiative with Bank of America results in smarter integration of online assets,

• graduation from GG's Social Impact Academy helps PSYDEH to better define and measure impact, and

• first animated educational lesson with the American art student Olivia KT smartly promotes our scalable framework. 

¡Juntos Somos Mejores!

Links:

• Recent News
• PSYDEH on Facebook

With this win-win quarterly report, we write less to share more. 

PSYDEH is thrilled to announce the publication of our 2017 Annual Report in two forms:

• HORIZONTAL (recommended full-spread view)
• VERTICAL (single page view)

This document marks a complete redesign of how we think about Annual Reports thanks to our ongoing collaboration with the global digital media and digital communications Dentsu Aegis Network. It speaks to a seminal year for PSYDEH in 2017, which we now build into bigger and better impact in 2018.

Second, with a picture worth a thousand words, and video better than a photo, we invite you into "our living room" with these two short video episodes from our feminine voices series:

• Otomi leaders planning 2018 actions (May 2018)(Otomi with English description)
• Nahua leaders showing where they work (April 2018)(Spanish)

Our harvest is bigger and better than ever, and we invite you to share in celebrating our progress.

Happy summer from PSYDEH!

Links:

• 2018 Ongoing Seed Fund Campaign
• PSYDEH recent news

2017 was a seminal year for PSYDEH; 2018 looks just as bright!

Since our last report, we:

• executed the final stage of 12 months of training around political violence against women while continuing to coach women leaders on "how to" produce their own projects in 2018.

• expanded our diverse team of majority-women professionals to include an American Fulbright and elite businesswomen from the Dentsu Aegis network of marketing and branding companies.

• produced our biggest Public Relations event in PSYDEH history.

LATE-2017 WINS  

In December, PSYDEH completed a federal government-funded initiative to strengthen indigenous women's participation in Mexico's electoral processes. This work continued progress started with our 2016-2017 award-winning initiative, is highlighted HERE in our most polished film-to-date and produced such tangible products as:

• our first community radio public information campaign, 

• 200+ indigenous women leaders uniting in the fourth edition of our unprecedented series of regional public forums designed to celebrate months of learning around such topics as leadership as a tool for social impact, and

• the unprecedented Huehuetla Declaration of 2017 with women demands for strengthening their communities.

And PSYDEH continued pushing for a strong 2018 return on "Fruits of Change" investments by empowering our network of women-led NGOs to recently unveil their respective missions, visions, and logos in advance of 2018 project planning and fundraising work. See below these four logos.

2017 FRUIT TO BEAR MORE SEEDS IN 2018 

PSYDEH's sustained success is dependent on effective partnerships inspired by the "bottom-up development" truth that we are better together. For example, and thanks to 2017 success, we

• have been selected as one of two Mexican NGOs and one of 19 global NGOs to work with the global Dentsu Aegis network of marketing and branding companies in 2018,

• continue our years-long collaboration with one of the best universities in Mexico, and

• recently launched our second GlobalGiving crowdfunding campaign.

As exciting, PSYDEH recently enlisted Ms. Katie Freund, US Fulbright scholar, as our special projects coordinator. Ms. Freund, passionate about combining hard data and cultural studies to produce a sustainable impact, states, “I am excited to join PSYDEH because I love this region and the people who live here. And PSYDEH embraces the cultural richness of the communities in which they work, building off the natural and human resources that already exist here. It’s amazing to get to work with a team that is so committed to creating innovative, sustainable impact from the bottom-up.”

BIGGEST PUBLIC RELATIONS EVENT IN HISTORY

In late January 2018, PSYDEH was celebrated at a groundbreaking experience at La Cineteca Nacional de México, one of the most prestigious cinema centers in the world, produced by the innovative Colectivo Cine Social (CCS), with support from the Mexican federal government Secretaria de Cultura. See HERE for a video news story in Spanish on the experience by Xinhua News Agency.

The event took months to produce and was co-led by PSYDEH to offer 200+ Mexicans and foreigners from more than 8 countries a special screening of the new, highly-acclaimed film by director Ernesto Contreras: “Sueño en otro idioma” (Dream in another language), a panel discussion on indigenous rights, with a focus on the right of autonomy through language as key to sustainable development, and a post-event cultural experience.

The PR initiative is the most recent chapter in PSYDEH’s ongoing campaign to bridge urban and rural communities at the national and international level. And its another example of our leader-training methodology in action. As Marisela, panelist and PSYDEH indigenous women partner, says, “We as indigenous women have the same abilities, the same dreams, the same potential to be successful in life: we just lack the opportunities. And this event gives us the opportunity to have a voice, to tell our story, to speak directly to our country. “

Links:

• Feb. 2018 Field Report Video_Katie Freund
• PSYDEH Film "Del Otro Lado" (2017 Project Impact)
• New Crowdfunding Campaign "Seed Fund for Indigenous Women ..."

We refuse to let earthquakes, extreme weather and poverty stop us from progress.

Since our last report,

• we completed our GlobalGiving (GG) campaign! 

• Women partners confirm that our rights-based, bottom-up education and community organizing work is right and good. 

• PSYDEH inches closer to delivering more returns on your investment.

WE'VE DONE IT!

When PSYDEH launched our GG "Fruits of Change" campaign in late-September 2016, we had few income streams, no donor base, no social media presence, and no history of, nor a story about, working with foreigners. Thanks to you, we’ve made strong progress in each of these areas. Your investment funds these actions highlighted in our June field report video. And we tell our powerful story to institutional funders, how a little Mexican NGO joined forces with citizens from 16 countries in four continents to resist the "wall talk" by joining native Mexican women to solve local problems. Doubt us? See our interactive donor puzzle and this AMAZING image for proof! 

OUR WORK, NATIVE WOMEN, RIGHT AND GOOD

Doña Luis Arroyo, the 67-year-old Otomí leader pictured above and a mighty force in our Umbrella Network of native women-led NGOs (Network), was scheduled to attend PSYDEH's first-ever public forum linking women with male government leaders on combating political gender violence. But, torrential rains converted the road to the Forum into an impassible landslide of mud and rock. Not one male official from her town made the trip. Doña Luisa was not deterred. Upon arrival, after hours of walking alone in her now-destroyed sandals, Luisa stated, "[a]s a leader of my community, our Network, there was no other option. I have the responsibility to be present at these actions no matter the challenges." 

HOW TO FISH...

You help us teach native women how to sustain their own impact. In early summer, we began the second GG project objective: empower each women-led NGO to produce its own vision, mission, values and unique history statement, organizational logo and a plan for their first pilot project, i.e., NGO sustainability training. Work commenced with appreciative inquiry of women leaders about their demands for this element. We continued into the Fall with the second and third of five planned two-day work sessions resulting in each NGO producing its own rough draft of strategic plans and logos. Upon objective completion in early 2018, each NGO will be ready to raise its own funds and produce projects. 

*WITH CAMPAIGN SUCCESS, this is our final GlobalGiving report. If you don't want future project reports sent directly from PSYDEH, send us an email @ unsubscribe@psydeh.com.

**TO LEARN MORE about 2017 returns and progress, be sure to check out PSYDEH's RECENT NEWS page.

¡Juntos Somos Mejores!

Links:

• PSYDEH Blog

It's official. 

As highlighted in this new VIDEO FIELD REPORT, YOU are making a sustainable impact in Mexico!

Over the last three months,

1. WE delivered the first concrete return on your investment.
2. Native women are making exciting progress.
3. PSYDEH has celebrated big wins, as NGO and with our GlobalGiving campaign.

CONCRETE RETURN 

In late spring, your donation helped us complete an initiative to strengthen indigenous women participation in Mexico's democratic system (see HERE for our highlight video in Spanish). Then, we united hundreds of women with local NGOs and elected officials at a regional public forum to discuss why women must participate in the electoral process and sustainable development ideas.

WOMEN PROGRESS

With each passing month, more women partners show the power of our bottom-up education and organizing model. For example, in 2016, Marisela, 29yrs old and from Santa Ana Tzacuala, a past workshop participant and leader of the women's umbrella network of organizations (Network), ran for mayor, promoted our work nationally and built pilot projects in her community while helping to link other Network members to more micro-enterprise projects. In 2017, she continues to build, and link women colleagues to, local projects while pursuing a fellowship to attend a United Nations leader seminar in Madrid, Spain for indigenous leaders. By design, women like Marisela (who can be seen below addressing the Public Forum) direct our project design and implementation and sustain progress beyond our work.

BIG WINS

PSYDEH has just been awarded another prize by the Mexican federal government to answer women partners' demands to learn more about, and overcome male sexism in, Mexico's electoral process.

Our "Fruits of Change" campaign is in its third quarter and continues to innovate to achieve our monetary goal. For example, today, June 28, PSYDEH is selected from among Global Giving's 3000 projects to headline their home page. Moreover, we partner with USA youth who plant seeds for fruits of change, in Mexico and the USA.

Lastly, in pursuit of more, high-quality returns on your investment in 2017 and beyond, PSYDEH grows its majority-women team based in and out of the Region.

TO LEARN MORE about 2017 returns, progress and wins, be sure to follow our Recent News page.

¡Juntos Somos Mejores!

Links:

• PSYDEH Fruits of Change June 2017 Video Field Report
• USA Youth Fundraise for "Fruits of Change"