Strengthen traditional (especially indigenous and female) authorities in Guatemala as political actors by enhancing their roles in justice, violence prevention, and democratic transformation through gender-sensitive capacity building and community engagement.
255 people are directly involved (including 188 women, girls, and youth and 67 men and boys from the Maya K’iche’ population living in rural communities of Santa Cruz del Quiché). Around 11,765 people are indirectly involved. Special focus is placed on promoting the participation of women, many of whom are K’iche’ speakers; therefore, most project activities are conducted in the K’iche’ language.
Over 40 % of Guatemala’s population is indigenous, yet racism and discrimination remain deeply institutionalised, reflected in the lack of recognition for indigenous justice authorities within a corrupt state judicial system. Human rights violations persist, with high levels of gender-based violence, entrenched racial discrimination, and persecution of indigenous leaders.Guatemala has two coexisting justice systems — the state judiciary and traditional Maya justice—whose authorities face threats, criminalisation, and attacks for their role in promoting democracy and conflict resolution. In Quiché, a predominantly indigenous and impoverished region, Maya authorities play a key role in justice, violence prevention, and victim support. However, women remain largely underrepresented, and their perspectives are often overlooked. Cooperation and mutual recognition between state and Maya justice actors also remain weak.
This indigenous women's organisation stands for intellectual promotion of women. It is led by professional Mayan women from different academic disciplines, who support the transformation of society towards more social justice, gender equity and revaluation of Mayan knowledge and culture from the grassroots.