Program Details: Guatemala

Carmelina and Berta are Community Health Liaisons/Animators for the Tucuru Health Clinic. Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps

History/Overview

Mercy Corps' goal in Guatemala is to encourage civic, government and business cooperation at local and national levels to raise the accessibility and quality of public services, according to the 1996 Peace Accord commitments.

Mostly mountainous Guatemala has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years. The Spanish ruled for nearly 300 years, and after a short time in the Mexican empire, Guatemala gained full independence in the 1840s. Since then, the country's leadership has swung between democratic and military rule, with a number of civil wars — the most recent one lasting for 36 years.

The civil war disproportionately impacted Guatemala's indigenous populations, who make up 60 percent of the population; a UN-sponsored truth commission found that atrocities by state-sponsored forces wiped out entire Mayan villages.

Today Guatemala is home to 13 million people, a stable democratic government and a growing economy — the largest in Central America — with tourism and agriculture playing major roles. But income and wealth distribution remains highly skewed: about 80 percent of the population lives in poverty, with two-thirds of those living in extreme poverty, according to the U.S. State Department. Guatemala's social development indicators, such as infant mortality and illiteracy, are among the worst in the hemisphere.

Mercy Corps began working after the war's end to support the development of rural, mostly indigenous communities. Our work to accelerate rural development, and help families recover from Tropical Storm Stan, is carried out by a team of more than 70 people, all but one of them Guatemalan. Most of Mercy Corps' staff works out of either Cobán or Tucurú, both located in the northern Alta Verapaz region. Additional offices are maintained in Guatemala City and in Sololá, the region hit hard by Stan in 2005.

In Alta Verapaz, Mercy Corps has taken the lead in using alternative means to solve land conflicts that stymie rural development for mostly Q'eqchi´ people, and to help newly landed farmers earn a good living from their land. We're also strengthening a network of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to advancing peaceful solutions to land conflicts. The majority of our staff works in Child and Reproductive Health programs in rural areas, delivering basic health services, teaching volunteer community health personnel about health rights and responsibilities and viable preventative practices, and monitoring and advocating for improved quality of health services provided by the national health care system.

Programs in Focus

Resolving land conflict, spurring economic development
Guatemala has been plagued with conflicts over land tenure for most of its modern history. The Peace Accords signed in 1996 ended the war, but the government has not yet been able to address the underlying need for agrarian reform. Alta Verapaz suffered great economic hardships from the civil war and, later, a precipitous fall in coffee prices. Today, more than half of the population of Alta Verapaz live in poverty.

Mercy Corps approach is widely considered a model for "integrated land-conflict mediation" — one that combines conflict mediation, economic support for newly landed families, and advocacy for sensible agrarian policy.

The first focuses on direct mediation activities to hasten peaceful solutions to local land conflicts. Mercy Corps and its partner the Association of Lawyers for Legal Development (JADE) are the leading NGOs addressing this situation through peaceful resolution of land conflicts through negotiated consensus. We've established more than 10 mediation centers in the provinces, staffed with trained community volunteer paralegals, and a central mediation center with legal and surveying services in the departmental capital of Cobán. After more than two years, approximately 270 cases have been peacefully negotiated, with 142 of those fully resolved.

Besides providing direct and indirect conflict mediation services, Mercy Corps promotes efforts to raise awareness of agrarian issues at the local and national levels, with the goal of supporting a fair and workable land-registration system.

The third part of the project is to help newly landed farmers earn an income from their property. We provide technical assistance to the new landowners in land-management planning and diversified crop production, and organize the communities into production associations to link to commercial markets.

Beginning in 2005, Mercy Corps, with the support of The Phoenix Fund, began helping eight communities with planning, land management, crop diversification and marketing.
Communities that once grew corn for their own consumption now grow pineapple, honey, bananas and other produce for sale; in a 2007 survey of participants, farmers growing pineapples and raising bees saw their household incomes rise by 40 percent.

In 2007, Mercy Corps formed the Inclusive Market Alliance for Rural Entrepreneurs, designed to help rural farmers rise out of poverty and benefit from the rapid growth of supermarkets in Latin America.

The Alliance will work with 20 small and medium-sized groups of Guatemalan fruit and vegetable producers, mostly poor farmers who lack resources needed to succeed in a fast-changing marketplace. Mercy Corps' partners include Fundación ÁGIL, Wal-Mart CentroAmerica and USAID.

The Alliance partners will provide these farmers with a range of resources to help them become successful suppliers to high-volume purchasers. These resources will include training on production methods and crop diversification, critical pricing information, preparation on how to reach Guatemalan national and global agricultural standards, and start-up grants to buy seeds, fertilizers, tools and equipment.

Improving basic health in rural areas
Throughout Alta Verapaz, maternal and child health programs are strengthening the capacity of the indigenous Q'eqchi´ and Poq'omchi´ people to monitor their own health status and provide health services in collaboration with local organizations, health practitioners and government health officials. Our CHAM program currently helps more than 15,000 people in Tucurú, most of whom are women and children. One of the most innovative aspects of the programs is the use of female "cultural brokers" - local women who provide language and cultural support - who make it easier for non-Spanish-speaking indigenous women to access healthcare services.

Three additional programs extend the reach of our health successes into other areas: The CHAI Community Health Project is a joint effort between Mercy Corps and Tazo Tea to improve the quality of life for the local residents through better health care, agricultural practices and access to microcredit. Another program, sponsored by DFID, is helping 14 additional municipalities across Alta Verapaz replicate our community-based health approach through community organization and mobilization practices. Its main goal is to form and train representative Municipal Health Commissions to monitor and advocate for access to and improved quality of health services for all community members. Our fourth health program delivers health services to the most remote villages in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance.

Engaging youth around HIV/AIDS awareness
As part of our health project, we work with a group of about 30 teenagers, called Jóvenes 4 Peace, to promote HIV/AIDS prevention and education messages among their peers and other residents of the Polochic Valley.

Investing in local capacity
Mercy Corps is helping local partners improve their own ability to do the kind of work that's vital to building a strong civil society. Local NGOs play an important role in promoting citizen participation, government accountability and peaceful change in Alta Verapaz. In key sectors like health and education, they cooperate directly with government institutions to provide important services to underserved populations. Mercy Corps' Training, Advocacy and Networking Program for local organizations strengthens Guatemalan NGOs so they can more effectively advocate for and support the populations they serve.

Reconstructing villages hit by Tropical Storm Stan
In October 2005, Tropical Storm Stan dropped torrential rains on Guatemala and elsewhere in the region, causing flooding and mudslides and affecting an estimated 1.5 million people across the country. In the immediate aftermath, we distributed more than 1 million liters of drinking water, water-purification filters and organic fertilizer to 557 families. Our post-Stan reconstruction efforts continue to help communities in the hard-hit Sololá district restore their water systems, build improved latrines and restore agricultural practices with inputs such as seeds, fruit trees and fertilizer. We are also training the local Community Development Councils on risk management and emergency-response activities, and installing rudimentary early-warning systems to help them prepare for future natural disasters.

Last updated: October 2007