Before, the SERES Uspantán youth leaders held their meetings in the central park of Villa de San Miguel, Uspantán.
They would gather there, or sometimes in an office space lent to them by one community organization or another, to discuss their action plans to benefit their community and the surrounding communities in the municipality of Uspantán, located in the department of El Quiché, which sits northwest of Guatemala City.
Though the location of their gatherings was always in flux, the commitment of many of the young changemakers working to create positive impacts in their communities remained constant.
But now, youth leaders like Johana Lopez, a SERES ambassador and active participant in the SERES network of youth leaders in Uspantán since November 2015, have a central space to facilitate that continued planning and further their commitment to their community.
Johana said that she has seen a lot change in the past year - much of it due to a brand-new office hub space, called the ConeXpacio, which SERES Uspantán established and opened in May 2019.
The ConeXpacio: A place to grow
Young people in Uspantán now have a welcoming, safe place to congregate - something that was not available to them prior to the opening of the hub, she noted.
“We now have this space to bring about our projects and work on our action plans, and to prepare well for our Actívate programs in surrounding communities in Uspantán,” Johana said.
For Julio Tojín, SERES ambassador and one of the main coordinators of the ConeXpacio hub, having a central space for youth leaders to gather has been “a great help.”
“It’s an opportunity to do more things in the municipality,” Julio said.
The office serves as a “reference point” for a number of different activities planned by the approximately 20 youth who are heavily involved in SERES Uspantán, Julio said, who are connected to a wider network of at least 70 other young leaders in the municipality who participate in leadership retreats, hikes, teaching reading classes for young children, reforestation efforts, cleaning campaigns, and other activities.
Julio, Johana, and Ema Lopez, Johana’s sister and also a SERES ambassador, agreed that having a physical office space has helped expand their SERES Uspantán network, as youth have connected with them via their Facebook page and also have been able to visit them in person at the ConeXpacio.
Ema said that in addition to working on their action plans or carrying out other projects, the hub has served as a space for youth to connect with another by each giving different presentations or talks about different topics.
And according to Johana, the space and efforts of the youth leaders has already had an impact throughout the community and municipality.
“We’ve involved other people, institutions, and the actions that we are doing are now greater, I think,” Johana said, noting that public officials who form part of the local COCODEs, or community councils, in surrounding towns have complemented the group on the “great job” that they have been doing.
“I think that it’s been a space that’s allowed for the community to also be involved,” she added.
Building in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic
Right now, plans for the leaders of Uspantán for the growth of the hub are temporarily on hold, as are so many others throughout the world, due to the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing regulations put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Guatemala currently has more than 4,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed, and more than 60 deaths. In Uspantán, the first recorded case occurred several weeks ago, and residents have been under lockdown since then.*
The network is still keeping up their work, though, despite quarantine. Julio said that they communicate by Whatsapp and try to organize video calls and chats once a week.
The mostly rural communities of Uspantán face a significant risk due to the spread of COVID-19. In some places, Julio noted, it takes five hours to reach a hospital. Many of the smallholder farmers in the region are also suffering due to the economic restrictions imposed by the lockdown.
Julio said that once they are able to, they want to meet again in person, and do more visits with young people in other communities in the area to follow up and listen to them.
The long term vision for the hub, said Johana, is first and foremost to involve more young people in their network - especially those who live in more rural communities throughout Uspantán, far removed from Villa de San Miguel, the seat of the municipality.
They also hope to one day see SERES Uspantán grow and solidify enough to be its own organization, which will maintain the ConeXpacio and manage its own funds while working to continue to listen to and support the youth in the region.
“As young people, we have this space to be able to realize these activities that we can do, with which the youth can develop more their leadership, and can do so from a young age, from 12 years old, they can do something for their community. Because they have this capacity, it’s just that often they don’t have the space. So I think that this is the importance of opening this space, so that they can do something for their community,” Johana said.
Emily Neil
*Blog post published in June 2020. To this day - March 2021 - Guatemala has over 191K positive Covid-19 cases confirmed.