Senderos is all about partnership. And when we can bring different partners together, it’s amazing what can be done.
The Brillaguate program in El Tejar, Chimaltenango, Guatemala is one of the three primary programs that Senderos supports in Guatemala. Brillaguate encourages youth from economically challenged homes with small scholarships, tutoring, and community in order to help them pursue education and new possibilities for their futures. The program began as an initiative to support young women, but in recent years, it has grown to include young men as well.
CEDEPCA is another of our treasured partners in Guatemala. CEDEPCA is an ecumenical educational center in based in Guatemala City. Each time we have led a trip in the last seven years, we have spent the first morning there, where trip participants are offered a class on Guatemalan history, especially as it relates to the United States, and a class on current women’s issues, which includes deeply troubling rates of violence against women and child pregnancies (under 15 years old).
Though Senderos is a secular organization, we treasure this partnership with this faith-based organization doing good and important work in Guatemala. And our friends at CEDEPCA don’t just teach about what’s happening, they are also working to change it. These days, their primary effort at changing the machismo culture is through their Tamar and José workshops.
Betsey Moe of CEDEPCA explains the Tamar and José workshops:
“Tamar workshops were started for girls in Guatemalan communities where the number of births to mothers between the ages of 10 and 14 were shockingly high. These numbers made the women’s ministry at CEDEPCA sit up and take notice; the fact that ten-, eleven-, twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-old girls are giving birth is a sign that something is terribly wrong in a community, that intra-familial rape is happening behind closed doors, that violence has been normalized. Someone needed to speak out and intervene. CEDEPCA formed what is called the Tamar project in 2016, teaching young girls their rights, teaching them that they are created in God’s image and worthy of respect, and that they have value beyond sweeping and washing dishes and making tortillas and raising babies.
Then the José (Joseph) Project was formed in 2020 to offer workshops with the same kind of information for adolescent boys, teaching them that the Bible does not say that they are superior to or have authority over girls, and that being a ‘real man’ includes showing love and respect and tenderness, that it means being vulnerable and nonviolent.
Of course, the dominant culture sees these workshops as off-putting, as threatening the status quo. If women rise up and get educated, who will take care of the home? Who will serve the men? If men let down their façade of toughness, who will be the protectors? What if men lose respect and credibility? Not to mention the fact that for many it is uncomfortable to talk about violence and women’s bodies in public settings.”
We are thrilled to have coordinated an overnight retreat for Brillaguate students, put on by CEDEPCA. The 1 ½-day retreats are, for many girls and boys, not only the first time they’ve slept away from home, but also the first time they’ve ever slept alone in a bed. For Senderos, the importance of the content of the workshops is matched with the importance of creating the safe retreat space to explore it, and a sense of trust and community among the youth.
CEDEPCA and BrillaGuate are both working for positive change, one life at a time. Here are the two wonderful leaders of Brillaguate, Sara and Alfonso Quezada, sporting their new José and Tamar t-shirts, along with Senderos’ director, Sarah Robinson (middle).
Senderos believes that education transforms, and that programs like BrillaGuate, Tamar & Jose, and the work of CEDEPCA are essential to shifting the culture of toxic masculinity and female submissiveness towards more dignity for the women and men of Guatemala. We are grateful to get to be a part of this change, and thankful, too, for the extensive community that supports this work.
Senderos’ budget is under $130,000 and we are not supported by any endowed funds or long-term investments. Donations of any size make an impact on the programs we support. Donations are gratefully welcomed.