Weaving Words. Let’s dream in Tsotsil!

At Amextra, we promote the comprehensive transformation of Tzotzil communities in Los Altos, Chiapas, with respect for multiculturalism, and fostering the revitalization and transmission of indigenous languages with horizontal and participatory learning.

Every two weeks an indigenous language dies… And with it, also the visions that build their world. Due to assimilation policies and structural conditions of discrimination, indigenous people stop transmitting their language to their descendants to seek their assimilation into the hegemonic culture, in addition to the difficulty to find spaces for representation outside their communities.

Indigenous people are forced into passive and vertical learning processes, without knowledge exchange. Thus, the loss of ancestral knowledge and structural exclusion are some of the factors that cause 99% of the people in Aldama, Chalchihuitán, and Larráinzar, in Los Altos, Chiapas, to live in conditions of poverty, marginalization, food insecurity, and disease.

Jaltik K’opetik – Weaving Words

At Amextra, one of our most important methodological bases is community participation, where we seek self-recognition of people’s gifts and abilities to empower them, build a community organization, and installed training, from and for the groups.

Thus, in this project, we seek to recover the word through:

Translation (Spanish-Tsotsil, Tsotsil-Spanish) and printing of training materials on agroecology (food security), ecotechnologies (water security), and values for Nonviolence (culture of peace).
Training of 16 local leaders so, based on the translated materials, they replicate their knowledge with 80 people, thus achieving self-managing communities.
Training of 80 people in food and water security, recovery of native foods, agroecology, and education for peace.

These training were chosen by the communities, and the replication of knowledge will be essential to lay the foundations for a represented future for the Tsotsil children in Los Altos, Chiapas.

Let’s dream in Tsotsil!

The Tsotsil people call their language bats’i k’op, which means “true word“. With your help, 96 people from Aldama, Chalchihuitán, and Larráinzar, in Los Altos, Chiapas, who proudly identify themselves as Tsotsil, will be able to recover the true word and share their knowledge.

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