Organization for Development of the Indigenous Maya (ODIM)

We live in the communities of San Juan and San Pablo and are constantly working with our local volunteers and staff to ask the questions about what the needs in the community are and what is the best way to assist people to meet those needs. Our current programs include a medical and dental clinic in San Juan, a children’s scholarship program to attend primary school in San Pablo, adult literacy classes in various villages, a children’s cultural exchange with children from San Juan and Guatemala City, health promoters trainings, family planning trainings and cervical cancer detection clinics.

In addition we also host volunteer medical/dental teams, and construction team to help with the construction of the clinic and houses for people in the villages. We are currently working to train people in the communities in how to take oral histories and interviews for a health needs assessment, which we will finish by the end of 2009. This will further help us to evaluate our programs and determine our future programs and service in our medical and dental clinic.

The Viliages We Work In

San Juan La Laguna and San Pablo La Laguna are two villages on the southwest shores of Lake Atitlan in the department of Solola located in the western highlands of Guatemala. We primarily work in the villages of San Juan and San Pablo and the surrounding rural areas. San Juan and San Pablo are next to each other on the lake, but recently have taken somewhat different paths of development. The population in both villages is almost completely Tzu’tujil Maya, and the language spoken in both villages is also Tz’utujil. Some people in the villages speak Spanish; however many, especially the older generations, do not speak any Spanish or have only a limited use of the language. Thus we rely much on our interpreters and contacts in the communities whose relationships with us are invaluable to our work here.

San Juan has begun to develop recently in a positive way. There has been increased eco- and cultural tourism in the town and there is a more positive feel among the people in the community. There are many women’s weaving groups in the town and they take pride in their weavings made from natural dyes. The streets are clean, have road signs and beautiful art on the walls, sights quite unusual in an indigenous village in Guatemala.

San Pablo is a more oppressed village on the lake and is one of the 40 poorest municipals in Guatemala. In San Pablo 85% of the adult population are illiterate and about as many do not speak Spanish. In addition a study in 2008 in the town found that only 25% of the children between the ages of 5-10 years old are enrolled in school. A recent Guatemalan government document stated that 89% of the population in San Pablo suffers from chronic malnutrition. Contaminated water in both communities is a huge problem, and in the country accounts for 80% of all illnesses and many deaths. In this department of Sololá, diarrhea and respiratory illnesses are the leading causes of death and 25 of every 1,000 children die from gastrointestinal diseases, illnesses that are all preventable.

In both San Juan and San Pablo, the main source of income is coffee. During the months of November-February, most people in the town are out picking coffee beans in the mountains behind the town. Thus, the people in the villages have a little more money during these months when there is more constant work, and the rest of the year, they rely on other odd jobs, such as help with construction, planting corn, harvesting avacados. The people in the town who have finished school (which would be our equivelant to a trade high school are teachers, treasurers, secretaries, our tour guides; however these people also have a hard time finding work. The women in San Juan almost all make weavings using the backstrap loom and naturally dye their weavings with plants; while the women in San Pablo all crochet, and most of their products are little hacky sack balls which they get paid a very low price for from the intermediaries.