Tag: UVOC

October 29, 2015 by Nikhil Aziz

The Youth Voices of a Community Radio: Reflections from Guatemala

The Union of Peasant Organizations of the Vera Paz (UVOC) is a movement of indigenous small farmers—mainly of the Q’eqchi’ and Poqomchi’ ethnic groups—that organizes Mayan communities in north-central Guatemala to advocate for their rights to land and traditional territories. Supported by AJWS, UVOC runs a community radio station in Chamtaca, Alta Vera Paz. Gilberto, a young man with a slight frame and a deep baritone, is the station’s voice, a UVOC youth leader and the president of a Mesoamerican regional network of community radios.

September 4, 2015 by Nikhil Aziz

Mayan communities advocate for their land: Reflections from Guatemala

“The Time of Suffering”—what the Q’eqchi’ Mayans call the 30 plus years of conflict that ended in the mid 1990s—hit hard in Alta and Baja Vera Paz, two departments in north-central Guatemala that faced brutal massacres and violence. AJWS grantee Union of Peasant Organizations of Vera Paz (UVOC) works in this region.