Our Guatemalan Community Radio Project team welcomes its newest member, Ingrid Sub Cuc, to the team. Ingrid is half Kaqchikel, half Q’eqchi’ from Sololá, Guatemala. She grew up in Sololá, moving to the U.S. at age 12. Ingrid went on to pursue her passion for Indigenous rights and medicine in the U.S. She is currently finishing her degree in biology at Whitworth University in Washington.

Ak’Kutan Radio, the only Indigenous community radio station in the Toledo District of Belize, has just undergone renovations that are enabling them to reach more communities than ever before. They recently purchased a new radio antenna that is about 100 feet tall, and strategically placed it at the top of a large hill. Radio volunteer Sarah Priscie commented, “We have to climb 107 steps everyday to get up to the radio.” The strategic placing of the radio at the top of this hill has allowed the radio to reach many new communities that they were not able to reach before.

Two members of our Free, Prior and Informed Initiative (FPIC) team in Guatemala travelled to Panama and Costa Rica for three weeks this month to spread the word about the program to Indigenous communities in the two countries.

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On February 8, 2014, 55 youth from Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador gathered in Panajachel, Sololá, Guatemala for Cultural Survival's First Central American Youth Forum.

By Alyssa Macy, International Indian Treaty Council

Francisco Cali Tzay, Mayan Kaqchikel from Guatemala, was elected on February 3, 2014 to a two-year term as President of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on the first day of its 84^th session. Cali Tzay is the first Indigenous expert to hold such a position in the UN system.

Eight Indigenous communities in northern Huehuetenango have joined together to defend their traditional territories against transnational projects.

Juan de Leon Tuyuc Velasquez (Kaqchikel Maya), a former guerrilla commander during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, was killed on January 15, 2014 in Solola by unknown gunmen. Velasquez is the brother of Rosalinda Tuyuc, founder of National Association of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA), a leading human rights organization representing Indigenous women whose husbands died in the civil war.

On January 11-12, 2014, over 20 women and men from the municipality of Huitan, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala took part in a second radio exchange with Radio Acodim Nampix of Ixtahuacán, Huehuetenango. The main goal of the exchange was to guide and motivate the committed community members of Huitan on how to get their radio project up and moving.

Ryann Dear is the newest volunteer on our Community Radio Project team in Guatemala. She is a recent graduate from Boston University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology and Archaeology. She worked as an intern for the community radio project with the Cultural Survival team in Cambridge for five months this past spring. She was a great fit with Cultural Survival from the beginning, and is now getting the opportunity to see another side of our organization, working alongside Indigenous Community Radio activists and volunteers in Guatemala.