If you listen to the people who are forced to flee their homes, they want an end to violence. They want land reform. They want their human rights. Rather than building walls, we need to build a safer, more prosperous world for all.
The Peasant Unity Committee (CUC), a Grassroots partner, describes the violence and murder committed against indigenous families by private security forces in November.
A photo blog of the Agroecology Practices and Product Fair of the “Buen Vivir with Respect” international learning exchange in Chiapas, Mexico.
We are learning from our partners that there's another way to produce food that can heal and restore communities and the planet – agroecology.
We support projects that promote women’s leadership and that lift up the struggles of indigenous and peasant women around the world. In celebration of International Women’s Day (and every day!), here are some of the projects we are proud to have supported recently…
The US Treasury Department will now be responsible for restructuring Guatemala’s tax collection agency (the Superintendency of Tax Administration, or SAT). That announcment came last week from the US Ambassador and Guatemala’s President and follows weeks of public outrage and political fallout after a customs bribery ring was exposed in a UN-backed investigation.
Outraged by a pervasive corruption scandal that implicates top government officials, tens of thousands of Guatemalans filled the streets of the capital for their fourth week to demand the resignation of President Perez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti. The nonviolent protestors already won the second of those resignations when Baldetti stepped down after being implicated in a massive Tax Administration corruption scandal. And yesterday, Ministers of the Interior, Environment and Security also resigned in the wake of the scandal.
Grassroots International and our global partners are leading the way in developing sustainable solutions to the biggest challenges facing our world. From farming cooperatives and seed banks, to passing laws that protect ancestral lands and defending the human right to land, water, and food, together we take on big struggles and win important gains. Below are just some of the successes achieved in 2014 with support from Grassroots International, standing up to challenge poverty, climate disruption and human rights abuses.
Moving Towards an International Declaration on the Rights of Peasants
Widespread protests and strategic organizing succeeded in defending Mayan lands and food sovereignty in Guatemala. This marks a major – and unprecedented – victory as the congress repealed the “Monsanto Law,” preventing threatened exclusivity on patented seeds to a handful of transnational companies.
Land defenders in Guatemala are celebrating. In a country not known for its respect for human rights and due process of law, indigenous community activists have scored a recent victory whose impact will surely ripple through the nation.
Barbara Polk traveled with other Grassroots International supporters to Honduras and Guatemala in the fall of 2013. The article below provides an overview of the trip and her experiences.