Youths Leading Economic Ventures in Quiche

The Barbara Ford Peace Center Organization (CBF) was founded by the Sisters of Charity in July 2009, with the mission to promote the exercise of citizenship engaged with people living in poverty, integral development, justice and peace, with an emphasis in women, youth, community leaders and local authorities. The organization is located in Quiche, Northern Guatemala, one of the departments that was most affected by the armed conflict. Their work includes training courses, services and programs in the following areas: security and justice, violence prevention and conflict transformation, youth and women entrepreneurship, citizenship and political participation, integral health and food security.

CBF has been a local partner by participating in the program: More opportunities, more rights for youth in Guatemala and Nicaragua, financed by Kerk in Actie since 2016. The program aims to strengthen social leadership among indigenous youths in Guatemala and Nicaragua from a gender, rights based and pertinent cultural approach.

The program focuses in the following main lines of action:

- Economic empowerment;
- Lobby, advocacy and political participation; and
- Violence prevention.

With their previous project implemented in the 2016-2017, CPF aimed to contribute to consolidating the social, political and economic leadership of young indigenous women and men in the province of Quiche Guatemala, specifically by:

- Promoting the participation and involvement of young adults, both women and men, in decision-making spaces and collective processes, that favour the exercise and observance of their rights in the municipalities of Santa Cruz, Cotzal, Chajul and Cunen, in the department of Quiche, in Guatemala;
- Strengthening youth-led entrepreneurial ventures linked to the Youth Cooperative of Honey Producers.