Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
ORCONDECO (Organization for Nature Conservation and Communitarian Development) is an organization n Guatemala that works since 2008 up to date in environmental – cultural education with Maya-Q´eqchi´(indigenous) communities in the region of Lachuá, Alta Verapáz. Under the coordination of Marleny Rosales-Meda y María Susana Hermes Calderón, two Guatemalan biologists, the “Popular, Bilingual, Environmental- Cultural Education Program” was created. This ladies work with 41 Q´eqchi´ native communities in different thematic areas which promote the preservation of the biological richness of the region as well as the rescue and revaluation of the local and traditional ancestral knowledge at a school, community and regional levels.
From this macro and popular educational program it emerges another more specific program called “Environmental-Cultural School Education
Program – PEACE” coordinated by Ms. Rosales Meda, one of the abovementioned biologists. At PEACE they work with 53 schools from 41 communities at primary and secondary levels covering 75% of the communities that surround a protected area (Lachuá Lake National Park), teaching local children and youngsters the usefulness and importance of ecological, economical and cultural values and the existence of natural resources. They are also motivated to participate and become allies of the conservation of the region.
Several people, recognized in the document below, translated the children version of the Earth Charter into Maya-Q´eqchi´ language and have integrated its contents into a teaching unit of PEACE called the value of the Earth and interrelations of life, which will be taught in the month of September in these 53 schools. As PEACE strategy to form qualified human resource at a local level, the biologists Rosales-Meda and Hermes Calderón, provide monthly training to the “guardarecursos” (resource keepers) of the Lachuá Lake National Park who multiply the effort in schools and basic education institutions as local environmental educators.
More Information at: www.orcondeco.org
Earth Charter for children in Maya-Q´eqchi´ here
E-mails of project coordinators:
[email protected] / [email protected]