Describe your idea with one concise sentence.

My idea is: WALC is a leadership program in agroecology and conservation that synergistically uti-lizes education and empowerment to enable young Q’eqchi’ Maya women to become agents of change in Guatemala’s central highlands.

Title: Student and Peer Leader Name: Marta Age: 12 Profession: Student

COMMUNITY CLOUD FOREST CONSERVATION and

WALC Program User Experience Map

Any other key characteristics: Marta has tremen-dous potential as a student and as a peer leader. She has excellent grades, works hard in her stud-ies and was elected class president. Concisely describe what is happening: Marta is just finishing 6th grade in her village. Her dad grows corn and beans. Once each year he leaves for six weeks to go work and earn some cash. The rest of the year he tends his corn and beans. Her mom does so much work that it makes her dad look like he is standing still. She and Marta pre-pare meals, which is way more work than you might think.

In Marta’s village there is a primary school. Marta’s village does not have a school that offers anything beyond 6th grade. Marta wants to keep going to school to become a teacher, but her mom and dad don’t think she should. For one thing they don’t have the money but for another they feel like girls shouldn’t go to school beyond learning to read anyway. Marta is at a crossroads in life at the ripe old age of 12. She either gives up on her dream of becom-ing a teacher and stays home and helps her mom and in a few months gets married. OR, she comes up with a plan to go to 7th grade. Marta’s family lives in a remote village at the edge of a huge forest. They eat mostly corn which shows up in nearly everything they eat. They eat black beans, too. Marta’s little sisters and baby brother don’t get enough vitamins. Marta’s villag-es’ altitude is too high to grow coffee, cardamom, cocoa, and other common “cash crops.” But sev-eral years ago, her dad planted 12 fruit trees that he no longer looks after. Marta’s dad just focuses on corn and beans. Every year or two he looks for a new place to plant because corn takes a lot of nitrogen out of the soil. The nearby forest is lush and green so he often cuts his corn fields into the pristine forest, and this gives him good soil. Marta’s mom has been pregnant 9 times. Marta is the oldest so she sometimes wishes that her par-ents would “get a room” when they want to do those kinds of things. She sometimes feels sorry for her mom as she knows that her mom is very tired sometimes and is not really looking forward to having the next baby.

Title: AWARENESS Marta has some girlfriends down in the next village, and they told her about a program called WALC. Marta is also excited because this year her 6th grade class is going to take a four day field trip to the WALC Center. She is excited and a little nervous. But she heard a lot of fun things from her friends in the next village so she thinks it should be an adven-ture.

Title: TAKING NOTICE Marta goes to the field trip with her fellow 6th graders and hears a presentation about WALC. Marta decides that this is for her. Marta lets her CCFC Kids & Birds teacher know that she wants to be a WALC student. Marta’s CCFC Kids & Birds teacher takes down her information and gives her an ap-plication.

Title: FEEDBACK Several weeks later Marta gets a message from her 6th grade teacher that her applica-tion was accepted and that she will start her 25 day program on November 11th (after the school year ends).

Title: ACTION

Marta shows up with her blanket, boots, rain poncho, corn and beans. During her 25 days she gets to know a lot of other young women just like her. Girls from remote mountain villages who are facing many of the same challenges that she faces. She learns about the importance of diversifying crops and she thinks of a lot of things that she can share with her mom and dad when she gets home. She also gets a lot of time to think about her own goals and objectives in her own “Life Project.” In addition Marta stays very busy.

While she is at the center she receives 10 lessons of Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s BirdSleuth curriculum, plus a whole lot more:

Marta really liked movie night. And she loves the way her peer teachers care about her as a person. The best thing is that Marta has newfound self esteem and self confidence in what she can do and who she can grow up to be. She also really liked learning about family planning. Marta learns much about balance sheets; she now knows that it is good to make some money if you are going to have to work really hard anyway. Marta learns about value adding and learns to make candles from the wax of the candleberry trees. She remembers that she has some of these trees near her house. Title: PROBLEM FIXED

When Marta gets home she quickly goes out and looks at the fruit trees. She sees that one of them is not even grafted (“No wonder it is not producing!” she thinks to herself). She notices that the other trees need to be pruned and fertilized. She asks her dad if she can take over the care of the 12 fruit trees. Her dad makes an unintelligible grunt of agreement. Marta prunes the trees in just under 3 hours, all the while dreaming about going to 7th grade next year. Marta makes a plan. She opens her notebook to the place where she made her notes on the “How will I get there” part of her Life Project class. She goes over the steps. Marta talks with her school teacher about how she can apply to a boarding school in San Pedro Carcha’.

stream ecology nutrition life project agroecology reproductive health birding indigenous rights reforestation cooking rock climbing soap making

empowerment/goal setting gardening music bread making ecology human rights conservation embroidery soccer family planning mud, cold and drizzle

fun, fellowship and friends chocolate making soil science storytelling heirloom and traditional

Q’eqchi’ crops women’s rights production and value add-

ing bio-acoustic radio drama

Title: HAPPY ENDING

Marta not only finishes 7th grade but finishes high school. She participates in the WALC Program almost every year except the year that she won a special internship to learn about fruit trees at the Caritas fruit tree nursery in Coban. And you should see her fruit trees! She started with 12 and now she has 30 trees. She earns about $1,500 each year by selling plums and nectarines (she really makes good money with the nectarines but the plums are more dependable). Eventually Marta becomes a school teacher. She encourages 12 year old girls to have dreams and to follow them and to change the things that they cannot accept. She becomes an agent of positive change in her village. Her dad ends up planting more fruit trees and even some new kinds of fruit trees. Her mom starts selling candle wax and this gives her a tidy income that makes a great differ-ence for her family. Eventually Marta gets married. She talks with her boyfriend about the importance of family plan-ning; at first he is not too sure but finally agrees. Marta has 3 children. Two boys and a girl named Marta — named after her best teacher friend in WALC (who was also named Marta).

COMMUNITY CLOUD FOREST CONSERVATION

and

Beneficiary Feedback:

WALC Program Prototyping – Participant Interviews and Responses

CCFC co-director, Tara Cahill, met with 12 WALC leaders—young women who have been through CCFC’s Women in Agroecology Leadership for Conservation (WALC) training. The answers below are their responses to the questions posed by Tara and after consideration of the User Activity Map.

“Recognition, respect and value of women’s experience, knowledge and wisdom gives dignity to us women as persons, human beings, in our villages and beyond. Helps us to value ourselves and be-lieve in our potential.” Flora Catalina Cac Cuc

“As we develop our individual and collective “Life Project” visions and goals we can rise up from un-der the obstacles of being undervalued indigenous young women, from rural villages, where lack of respect for women, poverty, chronic malnutrition and illiteracy.” Gilda Adelina Macz Poou

“Our learning and developing “Life Project” raises our self esteem and welcomes us to move ahead by valuing the important women’s roles as leaders. We are strengthened as we link together chains of wisdom and knowledge.” “Most empowering, practical and for me has been the Processing and Production of value-added products. I liked most learning Baking, Bayberry Candle Making, making herbal ointments, soaps and shampoos.” Aurora Sefarina Xol Cho

“Learning the importance of saving our environment is most valuable to me, including cleaning up our garbage and managing our waste.” Carmelina Cuz Rax

“Learning the skills of Gardening and increasing the diversity of vegetables and fruits that we our-selves can plant for our own consumption, to improve nutrition for our families serves me the most.” Olivia Cuc Cao

“Three distinct lessons new to me, that most impact me have been: Learning and teaching Bird Biolo-gy, Ecology, Migration and Conservation; Gardening with Agroecology understanding and practice; and working together in groups to accomplish our goals.” “We develop our responsibility for saving the environment together with knowledge and skills of conservation and reforestation. We learn to plant trees where they have been cut down, to replace trees that we have used. We recognize that we need to clean up and take responsibility to properly recycle and dispose of waste.” Ingrid Floridalma Yat Pacay

“In “Life Project” I learned that I need to and can stand up or rise up from under obstacles. With my improved self esteem, I believe that I myself can give of myself to help my neighbors. Together we can study and work to make a difference. The most important is that we all keep studying and work together.” Guadalupe Maribel Choc Col

WALC Program: The Good? What did participants value the most? What got them excited? What convinced them about the idea?

“For me the most important, useful and practical for greatest change is learning practices of and un-derstanding personal and household hygiene to prevent illness in our homes and family.” Marta Luvia Tut Xol

“Many young women, though invited to participate in the WALC program, and who wanted to partici-pate, were refused permission by their parents. In our villages, people still do not recognize and grant the rights of children especially girls to continue education.” “Our cultural habits are difficult to change. We have learned and know that we should not burn our fields for corn planting. We learn this year af-ter year, and share the reasoning with our parents, but people in our village keep burning.” Gilda Ade-lina Macz Poou

“Parents and teachers from some villages have not shown enough interest in the Environmental Edu-cation programs for elementary children to accompany the children and help with the science camp, while others have wholeheartedly helped.” Flora Catalina Cac Cuc

“Some young women, at first, came with arrogant attitudes, lacking respect for their compañeras and peer leaders of different age, or those coming from different villages or levels of resources. We need to begin by teaching equality and respect among us earlier in the program.” Aurora Sefarina Xol Cho

“We need to teach new participants to respect each other and their peer leaders.” Carmelina Cuz Rax

“The value of the program is in its practical development of skills and understandings. Some young women participants did not want to do the hands-on work. We need to begin with values and moral ed-ucation. We peer leaders need to teach the younger women well, the best that we can, so they too can rise up as we did, to take our places as leaders in the future.” Olivia Cuc Cau

“Unfortunately, this year we had a problem of some students lacking respect for each other, stealing personal belongings from others. We need to begin early in the program by teaching the good ways to live together, honesty and respect.” Flora Catalina Cac Cuc

“Most of us are used to living in rural areas and doing our part working. Unfortunately a few of the young women came to participate, not interested, who did not want to be here because they were not used to being in the field and forest, without electricity; some who did not want to work together. We think it is just fine! We need to better select participants from rural families with need, accustomed to working and doing their part. They will gain more!” Ingrid Floridalma Yat Pacay and Guadalupe Maribel Choc Col.

“I thought we would go to work to earn a scholarship, but on the contrary, we spent most of our time studying. We learn so much about so many things! Many people come to teach us and share with us and guide us. Health, survival, planting.”

“What surprises me most is that I learned to produce products that we can sell, such as jams, con-serves, shampoo, soap, candles, baked goods. We learned lessons of the economy of adding value processing our local resources with our ideas and efforts. I have already shared recipes and ideas with other young women at my school. Together we made things for sale, and did the accounting to demonstrate our earnings. I am so happy I could teach and share with others what I learned.” Aurora Sefarina Xol Cho

“I began my participation in WALC very young, but already I can be a teacher! This year I was a teach-er of the baking class for both sessions of WALC. I did it!” Guadalupe Maribel Choc Col

WALC Program: The Bad? What failed? Were there suggestions for improvement?

WALC Program: The Unexpected? Did anything happen that you didn't expect?

“I was so surprised that everything was so good! I loved doing baking, candle making, making cookies. I appreciate all the good teaching and the nice place made especially for us!” Ingrid Floridalma Yat Pa-cay

“The education center is a beautiful place to study, a safe place to learn. My favorite was to learn how to make jam from fruit. It is a good place, just for us young women!” Olivia Cuc Cao

“I first came to WALC in 2011. Now that I came back as a leader and teacher, I am amazed at the great effort of everyone to build a beautiful space that serves so many young women and children. Only here do we get this kind of formation and empowerment, nowhere else do we find any opportunity to study like this, especially the education about our environment.” Carmelina Cuz Rax

“I became a Bird Sleuth teacher in 2012. I never imagined that I would teach children in so many villag-es. I would not have believed that I could be a community promoter. I started sharing what I have learned. I am most surprised that we a group of young women, well prepared as teachers, went to give classes in a boy’s secondary school. They honored and respected us. Imagine, young women teaching young men!” Gilda Adelina Macz Poou

“I am amazed that we can learn so much about our reproductive health from health professionals and peer teachers that have studied well the curriculum. We have learned how to help our villages. Even some day when I am married, I will be able to make wise educated decisions. I will keep my dignity and make informed decisions about my own family.” Flora Catalina Cac Cuc

“I am amazed that we develop our Life Project and that we can earn our own way to pay for our educa-tion, teaching, planting gardens, and making special nutritious foods. We can pursue our own life pro-ject, each with talents and gifts together to serve in our villages” Marta Luvia Tut Xol

“We need to teach and share with young women and children from our villages and many more villages about what we are doing and learning. I started very young in the program. I am amazed that I have al-ready done way more than I ever expected. I want to motivate many more girls to finish 6th grade and to participate in this program, or at least to be sure to keep studying.” Guadalupe Maribel Choc Col

“I recommend that each month we receive more training as leaders in many things. We need more practice in the field so we have more to share with the new and younger participants in this year’s pro-gram.” Olivia Cuc Cau

“Provide more opportunity for more young women to participate. Every year there are new ideas, new things to learn, and new challenges to face. We leaders need to be prepared to recognize and under-stand the difficult home situations from which our participants come, so we can attend to their needs as they open, share and seek a life project that overcomes their obstacles.” Aurora Sefarina Xol Cho

“This program is not just for ourselves. We need to get out and teach in the villages what we have been learning and doing. We need to share with many more young women. That is what I want to do!” Car-melina Cuz Rax

“We need to promote the WALC program in the villages and in the village schools. We should send groups of us to the villages to teach what we have learned to other women. Sharing this project, we will motivate more people to study to be teachers, nurses, and gardeners.” “We need to form groups of those of us who have already been through the program to reach out to people in our villages. Togeth-er, we form a great community! Together, we can! Yes, we can!” Flora Catalina Cac Cuc

WALC Program: What Next? Based on what you learned, how will you change your idea? What will you test next?