A little about cooperatives in Guatemala

I have often been asked about my work in Guatemala, particularly with regard to which organisation(s) I was working with. Most people I guess expect to hear that I was working with World Vision, UNICEF, Save the Children, etc. Indeed it was a question I was not only asked by foreigners, but also by Guatemalans, especially from other grass-roots organisations that I came into contact with. But that had more to do with the history of Guatemala and their experiences. Hopefully more about that in a future blog.

The simple answer is that I didn't find the work through any multi-national help organisation, and in fact I rarely came into contact with any of them. The groups I worked with were almost exclusively "grass-roots" ones. I will try and clarify what I mean by that, and why I felt so drawn to them.

In many Guatemalan communities there exists what is known as a cooperativa  ("co-operative" in English). This cooperative generally "represents" the community in a variety of roles. It is usually a registered commercial entity, and must keep tabs on incoming and outgoing funds. The purchasing of land titles, communal vehicles, supplies for communal buildings are usually performed through this entity. It is also an organisational body, meaning that decisions affecting the community are conducted and voted upon using the structure of the cooperative. It's kind of a community "council". Members (of which there are usually 5 or more) are elected each year and hold positions such as President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc.

It is with this organisational and financial aspect in mind that most cooperatives were initially conceived. Traditionally, Guatemalan communities have dedicated themselves to one (or two closely related) activities that require an external market, or external representation. These would be mainly agricultural activities, such as cultivation of coffee, cacao, fruits and vegetables, etc. And the main function of the cooperative is to coordinate, transport and sell these raw materials. That function has extended in recent years to include also the processing, and quality control at a minimal level.

As an aside, funds donated to or given to the community for public works are generally managed by the cooperative, and any joint ventures (known as projectos) generally mean plenty of meetings involving the whole community. Projects can also involve only a small sub-section of the community, or I guess what would be termed a "sub-commitee" and these projects can be chaired by someone outside the cooperative commitee. The money though, as I understand it, is managed by the cooperative.

An example would be a project, funded by an NGO, to buy calves to fatten into cows. The NGO would give certain funds or the raw materials (perhaps including things like fences and fencing materials) and the community, in the guise of the cooperative, would decide for example:

• Who from the community would participate in the project
• How the labour for building the pens would be organised
• How the animals would be distributed
• How the funds from the sales of the cows would be distributed or re-invested

The money for these operations would then either be controlled directly by the Treasurer for the cooperative, or given to the person designated to run the cattle sub-project.

Some coopertives have more reach than others, by which I mean that some contribute to the running of the community more than others. In general, younger established communities still have a cooperative that functions relatively universally in the community, and in many other communities the people have opted to control their own finances and operations, which means that the cooperative has less influence, or at least that people take it less seriously. The decision to reduce the "communality" of the cooperative is generally taken by the cooperative members themselves, although cooperatives can cease to represent the community simply because the majority of the community don't agree with or feel that the decisions affect them any more.

The reason I have introduced the Guatemalan community "cooperative" is because every community has one. This universality has meant that the name and structure is employed by many groups within a community, groups that effectively perform the function of a sub-commitee. That is, they are community members who dedicate themselves to a specific task (or project), but this commitee is not governed by the rules of the cooperative, and does not receive funds from it. Nevertheless, the principals of the group are similar:

• They dedicate themselves to a specific task
• They elect a board of directors to handle the operations of the group
• All members are involved in the decisions of the project
• The members decide on the allocation of funds within the project

The simplest explanation of why this structure is so common in Guatemala is perhaps pratically all Guatemalans understand how such a structure functions or have experienced one in their lifetime.

All the groups I was involved with when I worked in Guatemala had this structure. Some were more closely connected with the "community cooperative" than others. The histories of how these groups had formed and arrived at their present states is perhaps too long and complicated to detail here. The important points can be summarised so:

1. They were all autonomous groups that had been formed in their own communities, by community members with a common goal
2. They were directed by a sub-commitee of women from within the community, with no assitance (at a board level) from outside

The actual groups themselves I hope to detail in the coming week.

A new beginning

I decided to start writing this blog in the main because of my "life situation" at the moment, so I suppose the best place to start is by describing who I am and what that is.
I am a 36 year old Electronic Engineer by trade, I finished University at the age of 23, and then worked in the Digital Design industry (Networking Hardware, Scanners, Telecommunications) for nine years until 2005. Inspired by several overseas trips, mainly to countries with a high percentage of poor population, I decided to head to Mexico and Guatemala to try and work with organised community groups working in fields such as traditional textile or food production (I hope to write a future blog about this).
I ended up beginning a collaboration as a "consultant" with a group of women from a community of Guatemalan refugees, who were granted land as part of the Peace Accords following the end of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1996. These women were using locally grown peanuts to produce peanut butter (the previous blog, which I had completely forgotten about, was about a peanut sheller I organised for them), a process they learned from a Mormon couple who lived in the community for almost ten years, apparently as a safe-guard that the community was not harassed by government, private interests or neighbouring communities following their repatriation.
This collaboration led to further contacts with groups in similar situations, and I spent over three years living in the country fulfilling a role as an advising consultant and more active "sales representative" for community groups and their products in local Guatemala markets. I was also involved in other social movements and programs within the country, mainly those related to the promotion of local, community-organised and structured groups of producers.
I found this work incredibly motivating, personally satisfying, invigorating, and I couldn't get enough of it. I started projects of my own with these groups, trying to further both their ability to secure a future for themselves and their initiatives, and their outlook on collaboration as a way to achieve these goals (by that I mean collaboration with other like-minded groups). What began as an "experiment" to see if I could really engage myself in such an unknown environment became a conviction that this type of work was what I wanted to continue to do with my life.
A point came when I believed I had done as much as I could with my current projects, and that my presence was hindering the ability of the groups to develop rather than helping it (by development I mean in the context of developing self-management- that I was simply taking away tasks that they could have been learning or doing themselves). I returned to Australia to try and find funding for a project that would capitalise on the improvement that the groups had made over the years, and that would enable the groups to continue to grow by offering products to more markets, including potentially international ones. Unfortunately that quest for funding proved fruitless, perhaps simply too much for one person to draw up and manage by themselves.
Personal circumstances (i.e. my girlfriend ;-) then led me to Germany, in which I arrived almost exactly a year ago, and where I now live. I believed at the time that it could also be a positive move for me in terms of continuing my development as a professional in Community Development work, being as there are many government and non-government (principally church-based organisations) that sponsor and oversee development projects in many countries around the world, including Latin America. Alas, there have been some obstacles that have been a little more difficult to overcome than I imagined, the language barrier being among the greatest. Yes, most younger Germans speak good English, but most organisations that answer to the German government or German sponsors require YOU to speak and write professional German.
I continue to look for a job in the area of sustainable or community development, but now I must also look at the possibility that further study in a German University might be necessary to broaden my employment possibilities if a position in Latin America or other developing country doesn't eventuate.


And that is pretty much a condensed version of my story. I decided to write this blog, then, to remind myself of what inspired and inspires me so much about this field, why I am so interested in it, and why I am convinced I want to continue to work in it. I hope it will become something of a way to look back at what I did in Guatemala, and something to enable me to expand on the topics that are relevant both there and in "first world" countries such as Germany and Australia. I hope it to be sometimes personal, and sometimes a good factual read.
Oh, and I need to practice my German translations, so some parts should also appear in German. I really should be using my Spanish more as well, but translating to two languages for every post might just take up too much time. Hopefully I'll get to reminisce about my time in Guatemala a little in Spanish though...