WHERE COMMUNITY FORESTRY COMES TO LIFE.
Our purpose
La PECESITA —Educational Proposal for Ecosystem Conservation, Integral Health, and Agroecological Transition— is the Utz Che’ Association’s Center for Integral, Popular, and Community Development, located in El Suquite, on the southern coast of Guatemala. It was established in 2017, when a partner in the network donated more than 26,000 m² of land, and it was built year by year by the communities themselves—using their own materials, their own hands, and their collective labor. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Today, it offers hands-on training in five focus areas: popular education, the environment and natural resources, leadership and entrepreneurship, political education and advocacy, and intercultural understanding. It is a space built from the ground up, where community forestry comes to life.
VISION
To be a vibrant, leading, and competitive school in Mesoamerica for leadership and training in community forestry.
MISION
Build capacity in innovative and inclusive community forestry in Mesoamerica, with a focus on Guatemala.
CINCO CAMINOS. UNA SOLA RAÍZ.
1. EDUCATION AND FORMATION
APRENDER HACIENDO
La Pecesita ofrece a las organizaciones comunitarias y a la población indígena y campesina un espacio propio, con contenidos y metodología popular. Un lugar donde el saber del territorio por fin se vuelve escuela.
2. ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES
FORESTERÍA COMUNITARIA
Un espacio para fortalecer la conciencia ambiental y el manejo sostenible de los bienes naturales, impulsando el modelo de forestería comunitaria. Porque cuidar el bosque y sostener a la familia pueden, y deben, ser la misma cosa.
3. LEADERSHIP AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ECONOMÍAS COMUNITARIAS
Formación pensada para las economías de la comunidad: para que las ideas se vuelvan negocios, y los negocios, liderado. Para que las nuevas oportunidades no obliguen a nadie a irse, sino que florezcan aquí.
4. POLITICAL TRAINING AND ADVOCACY
DEFENSA DEL TERRITORIO
Educación política para la gobernanza comunitaria, que despierta conciencia y ciudadanía y la convierte en acción: en la defensa concreta de los derechos colectivos y del territorio que las comunidades llaman casa.
5. INTERCULTURALISM AND COMMUNITY
ENCUENTRO DE SABERES
La Pecesita es un punto de reunión, un lugar para intercambiar saberes y experiencias entre pueblos, fiel a la identidad multicultural y plurinacional de Guatemala.
- Empower communities, especially young people and women, with successful models in their communities in technical, productive, and innovative skills adapted to their realities and climate change.
- Strengthen agroecological practices and sustainable resource management from an ecosystem perspective.
- Value and preserve cultural and natural assets and indigenous and ancestral knowledge.
- Promote the leadership of indigenous communities to influence political decision-making spaces.
Kilometer 96.5 of the Escuintla-Puerto Quetzal highway, municipal district of Masagua, department of Escuintla, Guatemala.
