CASA ALEGRIA: Offering our hearts, interweaving our dreams, we create a better world for all

IF YOU ARE ARRIVING HERE IN HOPES OF SUPPORTING OUR CAMPAIGN, IT IS NOW CLOSED.

But you can always donate at the following link:

https://donorbox.org/buena-semilla

Thank you!!!!!

ABOUT US

We are a collective of indigenous Maya and non-indigenous women united by the heart in our desire to heal, grow, and build new realities for ourselves and our communities - beyond the divisions and violence of our histories and daily lives.

We carry in our bodies the wisdom of our experiences. In our collective memory, the knowledge of our ancestors. In our hands, the hope of being co-creators of a better world.

WE ALREADY HAVE SO MUCH TO BE GRATEFUL FOR

Our Women's Circles are the living fabric of our collective dream. A dream of voices, identities and knowledge reclaimed. Of recognition and reciprocity. Of harmony, equilibrium, and self-determination. Of well-being, plenitude, and freedom of being. Of new seeds sprouting in every place, even the most inopportune ones.

Our safe and transformative spaces catalyze the reweaving of a broken social and cultural fabric and reframe historically disempowered individuals and groups as agents of change in their lives, families, and communities.

It is not a solitary or short-term effort!  We have...

• 16 women leaders, Circle guides and community counselors, leading 20 weekly Women's Circles for more than 200 women participants from Maya Mam communities of San Juan Ostuncalco and Tz'utujil communities in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala.
• 12 yrs of experience in community psychosocial health, in decolonized & liberation methodologies, in the training of community leaders & counselors, and in the multiplication of collective spaces.
• A growing global community, with the participation of more than 300 donors in 2021, contributing > 75% of our annual budget!

OUR VISION OF THE FUTURE:  

We dream of co-creating a community space – la Casa de la Alegria [House of Joy] – a safe refuge and place of reciprocity and convergence for local women, dedicated to sisterhood, coexistence, and empowerment.

This furthers our mission to support women and their communities in their quest to reclaim their voice, their identity, their well-being, their sovereignty, and their self-determination.

La Casa de la Alegria will be created for:

• Sharing between women, including through the Women's Circles
• Recovering, conservating and exchanging know-how and ancestral knowledge
• Caring for Mother Earth: medicinal garden, vegetable garden, forest nursery, seed bank
• Exchanging products, through a solidarity store (selling fabrics, clothes, food)
• Godmothering girls left behind by migrant mothers
• Providing temporary shelter for women victims of violence
• Welcoming YOU with open arms!

JOIN US!

We cannot do this without you!

With your donation, we will create two Casas de la Alegria – one in Santiago Atitlán and one in San Juan Ostuncalco – managed collectively by our community leaders and open to all.

You will be part of a powerful movement of women supporting women, co-creating autonomous and reciprocal spaces, where everyone offers what they can, and receives what makes them grow and smile, for the good of all.

Every dollar makes a difference:

• With $5 we buy seeds
• With $25, we celebrate a Women's Circle
• With $150, we buy materials for collective undertakings (thread, fabrics, paints)
• With $1,500 we support a leader for a year
• With $10,000, we provide training and continuous support to all the leaders of an area for one year

WHAT WILL YOU RECEIVE?

• Each month, through a personal email, you will receive the voice of a woman from the Global South. Prepare to be deeply touched and transformed!
• A tree planted in your name by a Mam or Tz'utujil woman, in the beautiful Western Highlands of Guatemala
• The healing force of profound gratitude from a community that welcomes you and integrates you into the fabric of our community
• The personal satisfaction of being part of the co-construction of a world where we all belong!

TESTIMONIALS

"I thank such projects that are based on the needs of indigenous women in our country. Projects like Buena Semilla not only change but empower and are a blessing and make a great contribution to Guatemala." - Ana Lucia Rivera, prior donor

“It is important to support the empowerment of women in Guatemala, projects like Buena Semilla have impacted many women in vulnerable communities. Thank you for contributing to the substantial changes in our country.” – Karla Samayoa, prior donor

“Buena Semilla has not only contributed to the well-being of many women but also that of their family, since happiness is reflected in each project that they carry out, whether it is in the realization of sewing or taking care of a chick, without a doubt.” – Gabriela García

“I believe in women's circles for the well-being of my community. I hope it can be done in other communities because I have seen the positive impact.” – Alex Petzey Quiejú

“There was no way to share what I had on my mind or my soul with anyone. None of them paid attention to us and when we went to participate in the circles, we were heard.” – Women’s Circle participant

“Before I was very shy. I was afraid to go out alone. I no longer felt this after participating in the circles, because in that space I felt that I had the support of all the women. Just by talking to them, one feels more free to express oneself, and to face life without fear.” – Women’s Circle leader

“What I learned in the Women’s Circle is to value myself because I felt undervalued, I felt that I did not exist. But talking to all the other women, I felt that things can be done.” – Women's Circle participant

“There exist very few spaces for women to participate in within their own communities. If women can believe in themselves and increase their self-esteem, they can have more decision-making capacity. Women have less problems when they know how to solve them. It is a very important step, that can have a very strong impact on the life of every woman, every family, and every community.” – Women’s Circle leader

“The women of Buena Semilla include a growing number of rural Mayan women who have developed and sustained circles of solidarity and community in the midst of a continuum of racism, violence and impoverishment – embracing their traditional beliefs and practices as well more recent technologies. I am honored to support their work and urge you to join me in providing what we can from afar to stand with them.” – M. Brinton Lykes, Professor of Community-Cultural Psychology, Lynch School of Education at Boston College