FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GEORGIE ANNE GEYER by Georgie Anne Geyer

MODERN GUATEMALA PUTS WOMEN AT THE CENTER OF CHANGE

(NOTE TO EDITORS: Georgie Anne Geyer will be on vacation the week of Aug. 28. Her regular schedule will resume the week of Labor Day, and the column that normally moves on Monday will be released on Tuesday, Sept. 5.)

SANTO DOMINGO XENACOJ, Guatemala -- For anyone who remembers the "old Guatemala" of the '60s, '70s and '80s -- the bitter guerrilla conflict, that impenetrably class-ridden elite, and those pitiful Indian villages literally wiped off the map by the military -- what is happening in this village west of Guatemala City is little less than stunning.

One image from that era haunts my memory: the faces of the Mayan Indian women, square brown visages with impassive black eyes, looking out totally without expression. Surely they could never spring to modern life from those monumental silences.

But now I have returned to Guatemala for the first time in 30 years, and I watched Wendy de Berger, the beautiful, intelligent and naturally composed wife of the country's president, working in beginning but effective ways with the Indian women. Her Creciendo Bien, or Growing Healthy, program is helping them to run their own schools, start their own commercial bakeries, build their own care for the elderly, stand up against family violence, and do everything from reforming their poisoned water systems to modernizing their cooking systems.

And the most amazing thing I found, as we met with Indian women wearing the same beautifully embroidered costumes I had admired so many years earlier? The women are smiling.

At one point, Wendy, as everyone in Guatemala seems to call her, said to me and a small group organized by a prominent charitable foundation: "Why are we working with

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women? Because this area suffered especially from the war, and women are the ones who make changes all over the world. Although these women are very poor, they are well-organized and hard-working. We believe if someone gives them a hand, they are eager for change. We are not giving out money but making simple changes."

She paused, then emphasized: "This is what people need. They need to be recognized, to know they are worth something. The first point in all of these projects is raising self-esteem."

In this particular village, the women, with their own boards of directors, had built a charming, artistic kindergarten school for their children, adopted modern, Swedish-design "cocedora" stoves that immensely lightened their cooking work while saving firewood and diminishing respiratory diseases, and also started a Guatemaltecas de Corazon, or Guatemalan Women of Heart, bakery. We stopped there for cookies, which were delicious, and I asked a (smiling) teenaged village girl how much they were earning.

Very earnestly, she replied, "Nothing yet; we are now investing in the company."

Small stuff, the world may say -- and yes, it is. The program started with only 28 families in 2005, with women being first asked specifically what they wanted; later it grew with the formation of community development groups and women boards of directors, which are now legal entities. Today, the first lady told us, there are 2,500 groups of 30 women each; they hope to expand it to all 6,000 Indian communities.

True change, as opposed to temporary change, begins with these things, the stoves and water filters and schools that the people say they want. Wendy's programs are complemented, interestingly enough, by at least two other remarkable programs: 1) A young Guatemalan woman named Maria Pacheco is working with substantial success to create a "model for world development" by teaching the Indian women to market their own

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fine handmade projects ("productive chains," she calls it); and 2) the Fundacion Juan Bautista Gutierrez is doing everything from training thousands of teachers to sponsoring homes for orphaned at-risk girls.

It is all really a strategy of gradualism: building upon society as it is and not as the world would have it be. It is also a strategy of politics: When Wendy's Jesuit-educated husband, Oscar Berger, came to the presidency three years ago, the couple wondered why the Indian women didn't vote. They discovered, not surprisingly, that the women perceived nothing in it for them. These transformational programs are a way to bring them into the political system, of bringing Indian women to a level where they can reach the outside world while keeping their traditions.

But is it true, as Wendy, who was educated by the Maryknoll nuns, obviously believes, that Indian women can be the instrument of change for the entire society? Certainly they are finally awakened, and not only in the villages. The president, for instance, has two Indian secretaries. It is also true that the world suddenly is filled with women presidents, chancellors, foreign ministers and ministers of every stripe. One need only consider Liberia, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Uganda and Great Britain -- and most women leaders seem to be working toward productive change. Certainly, there is something amazing going on.

And when one thinks of Guatemala, the largest and most important country of Central America, as the tormented killing fields of 30 and 40 years ago, one can only pause and smile.

(EDITORS: For editorial questions, please contact Lisa Tarry, ltarry@amuniversal.com.)

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