Train 80 Guatemalans in Civic Advocacy

Wow! August already! It feels impossible to our team that we are already over half-way through with 2019. The year so far has been full of new collaborations and connections, which all are in line with the mission to increase the constructive impact of leaders across Central America.

In our last report, we shared that we would be going to Puerto Barrios in July to offer the Traveler’s Workshop there. The Traveler’s workshop, of course, is the very project for which we created this Global Giving Campaign and it is a project that is very near to the heart of ALG since it brings crucial skills to community leaders in rural areas so that they may increase democratic conversation and engage the communities they serve in new ways. However, due to a recent development with another time-sensitive project we had to postpone our trip to Puerto Barrios this month. We know that the Puerto Barrios community is still interested in receiving these skills, and we remain committed to offering this workshop before the end of this year.

The time-sensitive project is with the survivors of 2018’s fatal eruption of Volcano Fuego. Most of the community members who were displaced by the fatal eruption remain in the refugee-like camps they were placed in during the days that followed the devastation. In alliance with another community organization named SERES, ALG will be training the community leaders from these camps in the methodology of Restorative Practices with the hope that they use these practices within the groups of people they lead. The uses for Restorative Practices are many -- they can be used for mental health support, for conflict resolution, for decision-making, community building and much, much more. This work is urgent because the survivors of the eruption have been living in temporary refugee-style camps for over a year now. Given the context these people live in and how long they’ve lived there, the need for communication skills and the ability to resolve conflicts correctly and restore their sense of community. We’ll be providing the training in five visits to Escuintla, where the community resides, and each training will last three hours.

After the end of this project with SERES, we will return to organizing the Travelers Workshop with the hopes of having another date confirmed by our next report. As always, thank you for your continued support of our work!