Peter Bol is a 22 year-old community radio volunteer from the Toledo District of Belize. He has been volunteering with the community radio Ak’Kutan Radio for just 4 months now, after meeting another community radio volunteer at a workshop on Mopan Mayan hieroglyphs in August of this year. He was interested in volunteering with the radio due to his awareness of the marginalization experienced by Indigenous communities of the Toledo District. According to Peter, “There have been a lot of barriers between the Mayan culture and the rest of the country, such as language and illiteracy.

In a groundbreaking decision, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala ruled last week that community consultations against mining projects should be considered as binding legal decisions. The government is now obligated to respect the results of consultas populares or community referendums regarding mining projects.

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Cultural Survival's Community Radio Project team is in the final planning phases of what will be our one of our largest community radio events to date. This upcoming Tuesday, November 26, in Santiago Atitlán, Sololá, Guatemala, we are holding a 3-day conference for Indigenous youth from Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador, in coordination with three other Indigenous rights organizations, ADECCAP, Tumul K'in Centre of Learning/ Ak'Kutan Radio and Africa 70.

This week, a member of our Cultural Survival Community Radio Program team attended the Second Conference on the Process of Central American Integration for Marginalized and Excluded Social Groups, in Sonsonate, El Salvador.

This Friday November 1^st, or Day of the Dead in Guatemala, the municipality of Sumpango celebrated with their famous annual Kite Festival. Thousands of people from all over the country, as well as foreigners, travel to Sumpango on this day to see the magnificent, giant kites that various community groups from Sumpango have been working on for months prior to the event. There is music, food, drinks and dancing on this joyous event, which is the pride and joy of citizens of Sumpango.

On October 5, Asociación Mujb’ ab’l yol celebrated their 15 year anniversary with a special celebration at their Capacity Building Centre in San Mateo, Quetzaltenango. Mujb’ ab’l yol has been a staple in the community radio movement in Guatemala for 15 years, supporting the fight for the democratization of speech in the country.

by ARIJ RIAHI on The Dominion Media Co-op

On the final weekend of September 2013, our Community Radio Program team worked with ally organizations ADECCAP, Africa 70, and Tumul K’in Centre for Learning to organize the First International Central American Youth Conference in Sonsonate, El Salvador. The conference was aimed at improving integration and participation for Indigenous Central American Youth, through the use of community radio, as well as other forms of communication and expression.

On the morning of September 28, 2013, a military helicopter hovered over the Q’anjobal community of Santa Cruz Barillas, Huehuetenango. Mynor Lopez, a community leader in the resistance against the Hidro Santa Cruz hydroelectric project was captured and taken into custody by the police.

On the September 8, 2013 Cultural Survival's Community Radio team, along with a radio volunteer from Radio Ixchel, traveled across the country to visit the municipality of El Estor, Izabal, to discuss the possibility of opening a community radio. In the entire municipality of El Estor, where 85 percent of the population are Maya Q’eqchi’, there are no community radio stations. A large portion of the population only speak Q’eqchi’, and while many are bilingual, the majority of daily interactions in the region take place in Q’eqchi’.