Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2018 | Page 15

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
The work of Mayan Families, with curriculum and training assistance from
another NGO, Wings Guatemala, reveals the tensions created between dominant
community norms and organizations that are viewed by some as outside influences.
Mayan Families is a community development organization in Panajachel,
Solola, Guatemala, that provides a means of student sponsorship by donors and
runs preschools, a health clinic, vocational education programs, elder feeding programs,
and, more recently, sexual education. Mayan Families demonstrates some
of the complexities of leadership that exist in many NGOs that are neither entirely
foreign nor entirely local. While it is funded primarily by sources outside of Guatemala
and was founded by Australian and American expatriates, it was from the
beginning open to and heavily influenced by indigenous voices, with the board of
directors including local indigenous members. WINGS Guatemala not only provides
training to other NGOs, but also provides reproductive health education
and services including cervical cancer screening, birth control, and sex education
and counseling. Its main clinic is in Antigua, Guatemala, but they have mobile and
stationary clinics in other areas and send employees out to other parts to reach out
to the community with information and services. Their education outreach, which
includes public service radio announcements along with trainings, is directed at
young students as well as adults, both male and female.
Mayan Families does not specialize in reproductive health but added a
sexual education program to its existing education programs in 2015. Its website
points out the serious need for increased sexual and reproductive health knowledge,
access to condoms, and local reproductive health while at the same time
acknowledging the cultural challenges of addressing those needs. It notes that “[b]
etween 2008 and 2012, more than one in ten Guatemalan women had given birth
by the age of 18. Unfortunately, sexual and reproductive education is uncommon
in schools and other institutions for indigenous youth, as it is considered a sensitive
and often taboo subject from a religious and cultural standpoint” (Mayan
Families 2016). The specific sexual education program developed by Mayan Families,
with training from Wings, is Ojos Abiertos which incorporates a series of sexual
health promotion workshops for middle and high-school students. Wings is an
organization that provides information about family planning, conducts cervical
cancer clinics, and trains male and youth ambassadors.
There is an increasing awareness in the NGO community that programs
will not be successful if local culture is not respected. This awareness has been
highlighted in the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations Code
of Ethics and Conduct for NGOs, which states that an NGO “should be sensitive
to the moral values, religion, customs, traditions, and culture of the communities
they serve” (WANGO 2004, 10). That begs the question of which voices within the
community have the power to determine cultural norms, and which voices are
heard and which silenced.
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