November 2007 Delegation (Moved from web site)

This information was previously posted on MIA's main web site: www.miamericas.info

Shopping and sightseeing were a minor sidelight in this whirlwind visit to beautiful Guatemala. We had important work to do, learning by listening to women who are living there, to individuals and groups involved with solving the sever social difficulties there, and telling what we learned to two Guatemalan Congresswomen and several U.S. State department officials.



he No Violence Against Women March

Societal change is always started by small passionate groups, and our delegation fit that description perfectly. We had students, people active in fighting for women's rights in the U.S., and college professors in our delegation. All were very passionate about the situation for women in Guatemala, and showed they were willing to work to make their views known. We ate breakfast at 7 or 7:30 am most morning and out the door a half hour later, traveling, marching, learning, and making our presence felt.


After the No Violence Against Women march, we met with Congresswoman Nineth Montenegro

Before the trip, some in the group were considering leaving us for a day or so to do the tourist thing, but the work we were doing was so powerful, so compelling, that they decided to stay with us for the whole time. This was a powerful testimony to how worthwhile and valuable the delegation was.

Several of our delegates have told us they will be returning for future delegations, and some promise to bring students or friends with them. We invite you to consider joining our next delegation. If you are thinking about joining, contact us and we can give you a chance to talk with some of the participants of previous trips.

click here to see more photos of the 2007 delegation

Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta Santa Barbara, Z18

Escuela (School) Oficial Rural Mixta Santa Barbara, is in Zona 18 on the outskirts of Guatemala City. It's in the highest-crime area of the capital city, and is the school where MIA has chosen to initiate its campaign "Hombres Contra Feminicido".

This program teaches kids, especially boys, how to interact constructively with each other. Gender stereotypes, gender relations, and gender equality are all addressed in an attempt to break the cycle of men's violence against women. We are implementing the program using materials from the white ribbon campaign. If you want to help, contact us at miamericas@yahoo.com

Below are some photos of the school from our July 2008 delegation.







The kids put on a skit for us.



Our facilitator at work, with the delegates in the background.

July Delegation (Late report)

July 2008 we organized a delegation to Guatemala with 9 people: one professor and 8 students.

We visited many organizations (up to 4 in one day!) in the capital and had a field trip to a small village north of Quetzaltenango to visit a group focused on economic development in their small town. The trip into the mountains makes for a long couple days, but it is so worth it to get out of the capital and see the people and the amazing environment that is Guatemala.

We visited the trash dump where hundreds of families live and pick recyclables out of the freshly dumped trash. Often, the people gleaning the goodies from the trash are run over by the earthmovers or buried in trash slides.



We were given the tour of the dump site by representatives from Camino Seguro, which provides child care and early childhood education in a clean, safe environment for the families living at the dump.

We visited an organization that works with the families of those killed in Guatemala's 36-year civil war. H.I.J.O.S. seeks justice for the children of those killed in the genocidal war.

We went to the U.S. Embassy, but did not get to meet the Ambassador on this trip, because Ambassador James Derham had just left the country, and the new Ambassador had not yet arrived. We don't have any photos of our visit to U.S. Soil inside Guatemala because photography is not allowed in the Embassy.



The students at San Carlos University, the Sector de Mujeres, and Jorge Alvaradoose daughter Claudina was brutally murdered were all important stops on this visit.

Besides the education of U.S. Americans who join our delegations, we are running an education program in Guatemala at two schools where we teach children how to have constructive interaction between boys and girls. We hope this will lead to improved gender relations throughout the children's lives, a group of boys willing to speak out against men's violence against women, a group of girls strong to stand up and not tolerate violence.

After 10 days of emotional visits, we were happy to return home and start working to change the sad realities we learned about.

November Delegation

We're almost ready to take off on another delegation to Guatemala with 10 professors and students. Our first delegation was a year ago, and was very successful, and our second was this summer. A measure of its success is that most of the delegates signed up for this trip were recommended to come by someone on a previous trip.

In fact, two delegates from this past July are signed up for the November trip.

One delegate from July, a college professor in Orange County, California, has enlisted 12 students from her university to come next January.

So what do we do on these delegations? Our main focus is on women's rights, and we visit organizations that also are involved with women's rights, plus government officials who need to understand the situation women face in Guatemala. We'll meet women's rights organizations, organizations of survivors of the violence that has plagued Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy who has been charged by Congress to help end violence against women, and others.

Who are we?

MIA, Mujeres Iniciando en Las Americas (Women Initiating in the Americas) is a 501(c)(3) non profit corporation based in Orange County, California. For general information, please visit our website at:

http://www.miamericas.info

We will be using this blog to give frequent updates on our activities.