Nothing about us, without us

The Peacebuilding Project is designed to be locally led and community driven, employing local staff and partnering with national and departmental civil society organizations to effectively implement culturally relevant programming. Through small grants designed to support the implementation of Community Visions (CVs) and other locally-led actions the project contributes to reducing social conflict and increasing social cohesion in the Western Highlands. Civil society organizations identified through RFA send their initial documentation which is reviewed by an internal committee. Once the committee selects the grantee, the co-creation process begins between the civil society organization and the project’s grants and finance teams. Accompanying civil society organizations in the creation of a project proposal and budget and helping them to prepare all supporting documentation, is an important way the project strengthens the capacity of local organizations to successfully request international financial support. 

The project awarded grants to nine new partners over a short period of time between the middle of FY2022 and beginning of FY2023. Some of these grant partners include: the Political Association for Mayan Women MOLOJ (Asociación Política de Mujeres Mayas, MOLOJ) who promotes the civic participation of women in local decision-making spaces by strengthening women’s leadership and advocacy skills with a specific focus on peacebuilding and the peaceful transformation of conflicts; the Indigenous Observatory (Observatorio de Pueblos Indígenas, OPI) which is an indigenous-led organization based in Nebaj that recently finalized trainings to create and strengthen a Mayan Youth Conflict Mediator Network in the Ixil region; and Association Miriam (Asociación Ixoqib’ Miriam), which is led by Mayan women and provides culturally relevant attention to victims of gender-based violence (GBV), as well as training processes with youth and with ancestral authorities.

Utilizing CLA pproaches, the project identified the need to create the opportunity for implementation staff and partner organizations to build relationships and exchance knowledge and experiences at a two-day retreat. The project utilized Pause and Reflect and Eternal Collaboration strategies to improve project staff's understanding of the partner organizzation's missions and programming guidelines which had a positive impact on their collaboration.