Photo: James Rodriguez
Residents of Guatemala’s Los Romero village live mainly from subsistence farming or grazing livestock. Half of the population is Indigenous in Guatemala, but they do not share in its prosperity. Indigenous women in particular are discriminated against and dispossessed. In the village and throughout the region, a community-based collective of women’s circles has been quietly improving Indigenous women’s lives, empowering them to find voices that have been suppressed through centuries of marginalization. The initiative emerged from research conducted in 2010-2012 when French physician Anne Marie Chomat brought women them together for interviews for her doctoral fieldwork. Gathering and sharing their experiences had a profound impact on the women, many of whom are still dealing with the traumatic legacy of Guatemala’s civil war. Chomat, who now lives in Canada, said, “So much healing happened in that space of women connecting with other women, getting out of their houses, realizing: ‘I’m not alone’.” Once her fieldwork finished, participants decided they wanted to continue meeting and with Chomat came up with the idea of women’s circles. The project got going in 2013 and now more than 300 women participate every week or two in circles, each comprising roughly 10-25 women. “I have seen in myself that I am a strong woman and that I can do things I used to be afraid to do, said Miriam Mendez, a circle participant.
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