In a new initiative of the Guatemala Radio Project, Cultural Survival’s Guatemala based team is building capacity in a select group of community radio stations that have emerged as leaders within the broader movement of local radio stations in Guatemala. These ‘pilot’ radio stations will become hubs for information and training for emerging community radio stations in their geographic and linguistic areas.
A Mayan spiritual ceremony was held last Saturday, April 2nd, to celebrate the initiation of a new network of pilot radios stations broadcasting in rural communities of Guatemala. The day marked the 12th B’atz, a day which holds high levels of energy and represents strength in new beginnings. Nineteen Mayan priests and priestesses from the community radio station La X Musical in Cajola, Quetzaltenango participated in the ceremony. A Mayan ceremony begins and ends with prayers facing the
GUATEMALA- On March 23, 2011, The United Nations Office for Human Rights in Guatemala gave a presentation to a packed audience on the state of human rights in Guatemala throughout the year 2010. Alberto Brunori, the High Commissioner, explained the continued state of social exclusion and disadvantage that faces Indigenous peoples in Guatemala. In his speech, Brunori highlighted the necessity of equal access to media for Indigenous communities in Guatemala, and specifically to community radio frequencies.
On March 3-6, the complete Guatemala Radio Project team met for three days in Antigua, Guatemala, for intensive planning and staff development sessions, along with the celebration of Cultural Survival's five years' involvement with community radio.
Diego Mendoza is an Indigenous Tz'utujil-Maya, of a town called Santiago Atitlan, on the shores of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.
In a referendum on February 18, 99 percent of the population of the San Juan Ostuncalco municipality in Guatemala—a mostly Mam Mayan community—voted to oppose two mining concessions granted by the government on their territory. The people voting in the referendum demanded that the government cease issuing new mining concessions and revoke the existing ones.
Stereo Juventud is located in the village of Xajaxac, Solola, perching on highlands that look over the deep valley of Lake Atitlan. Santiago Ajcalon, pictured, got the idea to found the radio station after the right to community radio was guaranteed to Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala's Peace Accords of 1996. Since then, with the support of the people of Xajaxac, he and the station’s volunteers have been working to promote development in their community while keeping their Mayan culture and the Kakchiquel language alive.
Various rural and Indigenous groups blocked at least four major highways in Guatemala on February 6, demanding that the Congress approve a cohort of bills put forth by Indigenous groups, including Bill 4087, the community radio bill.
Guatemala's Coordinadora Nacional Indigena y Campesina reports that on January 10, 2011 police in the department of Alta Verapaz have attacked the Q’eqchi’ Mayan village of Se’ Job’ Che’, destroying their crops and animals and firing on the people. The police in this area, which borders Mexico, have been given broad powers to fight Mexican drug dealers who have crossed the border into Guatemala, but the village in question has no connection to the drug trade. A state of siege has been declared in the area.
Radio Ixchel is a community radio station located in Sumpango Sacatepequez, Guatemala. Anselmo Xunic founded the station when he saw a need for a means of communication that represented their own community. Anselmo explains, "there were no radio stations where we could hear voices representing our own community, our own Kachikel language, much less any female voices." The name "Ixchel" comes from the Sumpango's patron saint, the Mayan goddess of the harvest. The station broadcasts from 6am to 10pm, 7 days a week.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
