Gender Equality Mexico Project #39917

Our Voices are Stopping Violence!

by Amextra, Inc.

Project Report | Mar 3, 2021
#InternationalWomensDay is a chance for increased solidarity

By Stephanie Ahlgrain | Fundraising Manager

Dear Friend,

International Women's Day, celebrated around the world on March 8th, is a focal point in the movement for women's rights. It is a day dedicated to honoring the achievements of women throughout history and all across the globe, and is also typically a day for individuals to band together in the continued fight for gender equality.

This year, Amextra is dedicating our International Women´s Day efforts to the fight against gender violence, specifically forced marriage, rape, and human trafficking against tzeltal indigenous women in Chiapas, Mexico, through this very project, Our Voices are Stopping Violence.

Thanks to your support over the past two years we have been able to complete the first two of five stages of Community Narrative Practice (stage 1: conducting community interviews and stage 2: writing narratives) and are now ready to start stage three, four and five: illustrating and printing the stories, training discussion leaders, and using the illustrated books in small discussion groups. As a judge of a grant we received from Avon recently wrote,

“This is a very innovative methodology for Mexico and very suitable for indigenous communities, where gender violence is exercised, but it is not talked about."

As of February 2021 we are very excited to be in the process of hiring illustrators to make these storybooks a reality.

Also, from March 8th to 12th this project will be participating in International Women´s Week here on GlobalGiving. Donations up to $50 will be matched at 50% all week long from Monday to Friday. We are so appreciative for your support so far, and humbly ask you to consider making an additional donation from March 8th to 12th to make sure no other women and girls in Mexico need to suffer at the hands of preventable gender violence.

With strength and hope,

Stephanie and the entire Amextra team

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Nov 5, 2020
Virtual narrative workshops have launched!

By Stephanie Ahlgrain | Manager of Fundraising and Strategic Alliances

Dear friend and supporter,

We hope this update finds you well physically and emotionally during this challenging week. Gender equality is one of the most talked about issues in community development in recent times, and we are very grateful for your support and interest in reducing violence against women and girls in Mexico. As we mentioned in our previous report, the Community Narrative Practice (CNP) project has thankfully been able to continue more or less as plannedduring Covid-19, thanks to technology. We are on track to begin sharing the illustrated storybooks with families in Ocosingo in early 2021. This is the moment we've all been waiting for!

Before we begin implementation with families, we still need to complete the writing of a few more stories. Just last week, on October 30th, we began the five-part narrative writing workshop, which is being taught through the Webex Training platform in sessions of 5 hours each. Through this workshop Dr. Kathy Cash is training 4 people from Amextra´s central office and 8 people from the regional offices in Chiapas and Guerrero. One external support person is participating to systematize the experience and ensure that Amextra can replicate this workshop in other regions once the first pilot project in Ocosingo is complete and adaptions are made based on participant feedback.

For the stories that are already created, we are working on finding the illustrators to give them the final touch, and make sure they can be understood and seen by all. See the images below which are from the interview process so far. We love to watch the project taking shape in the form of the completed stories and initial illustrations. 2021 is guaranteed to be a big year for this project and we are happy you´ll be here to share the advances. Next year we will be able to share specefic stories of people that have benefited, and ideas that have come into reflection because of all this preparation to make the project a great success.

Wishing you the best,

Stephanie and the entire Amextra team

www.amextra.org

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Jul 7, 2020
A narrative for change in Chiapas

By Stephanie Ahlgrain | Fundraising Manager at Amextra

There's a girl who does not want to marry and pleads with her mother not to force her to do so, but the mother tells her it's her duty. The wedding is celebrated...Over time, when the girl's husband arrives home - sometimes drunk - he gets angry because the food is not prepared. Also, sometimes, he wants to have sex with the girl, but she refuses because of his aggressive tone, because he smells like alcohol and because he is spending money on beer, instead of buying food for the family. Since she doesn't want to have sex, he calls her a prostitute and accuses her of having a lover. To prevent him from hitting her, the girl succumbs to his sexual advances.

The story you just read is not real, but it´s written to seem as if it were. The characters and story line are based on data obtained from the analysis of more than 120 interviews carried out in five Tzeltal communities, and is part of the educational materials that will be used to inspire a deep and honest dialogue on gender relations and violence in Ocosingo., Chiapas.This story, and 24 others that are in the process of being drafted and translated into Tzeltal, are supported by testimonies and reflect the difficult reality of many women in indigenous communities in this state.The stories will be grouped into five books and are a fundamental part of the project "Ending violence through Community Narrative Practice" that is being carried out by Amextra in collaboration with the American anthropologist Dr. Kathleen Cash.

Thankfully, at the moment the Covid-19 global pandemic is not affecting our timing on this project, as we are in the phase of drafting the stories and fictional characters from these interviews, which can be done from a distance. Once all 24 stories are created we will plan the thirf phase of the project, in which local leaders are trainedto lead focus groups using these story books to inspire reflection on the violence and gender roles they expose.

Thank you for joining us on this journey. With every story written we are one step closer to bringing them to communities and beginning the implementation stage of the Community Narrative Practice project in Chiapas.

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