Sakalbil yakunaj yéetel le lu’uma’: k muk’a’ansik le k kúuchila – Weaving love with the earth: strengthening our school

During the previous years we have been defending and proposing a popular and decolonial education. Last year we managed to create along with Mayan girls and boys a curriculum, with this new proposal we aim to root and formalise that curriculum, adding an agroecological approach that includes the recuperation of ancestral memory, the wisdom and love towards work related to the jungle and the land.

As we have written in the thinking of our curriculum, intergenerationality and finding some elements that guide us toward an education for the consolidation of peace is one of the foundations of this proposal; thus, we believe this can be achieved through the exchange of knowledges between grandfathers, grandmothers, girls, boys and their respective parents, which will also be involved in this process.

Likewise, we believe it necessary to strengthen the knowledge of the researchers and the local commitments through the exchange of knowledges, for which reason we propose to interlink with Palabreras y Callejeras. This commitment will have a regional reach and will foster the strengthening of the EdJAM network for the analysis of the violent past and in order to find clues, approaches and skills that favour the education for the consolidation of peace.

As a grassroots organization, U Yich Lu’um (The Fruit of The Earth) we aim to apply an agroecological and decolonialising curriculum based on an education for peace in order to strengthen our Kúuchil Kambal Kuxtal-School for Life. In this phase we will prioritize the most harmed groups within the Mayan territory, namely: disabled children mainly (specifically due to autism and diagnosed ADHD), peasant and agroecological families. This objective that aims to create skills and strengths to become resilient in the face of global impacts (climatic), social, economic and cultural aligns with the guideline of Learning since it is aimed at girls and boys and also intends to involve a women and men that inherited a violent past. 

In order to strengthen the School for Life we will carry out a peninsula-wide Conference for girls and boys. Our intention is to create a space for social and environmental justice that is safe and inclusive, focusing on the work with the land starting from a decolonialising agroecology. This objective aligns with the guideline of Sharing, and faced with the lack of such spaces, U Yich Lu’um aims to convene the Conference mentioned above, becoming the first organisation at the regional level that calls for the encounter of girls and boys. With this objective we will also obtain research elements for analysing the violent past but, above all, knowledges that will help to find healing processes for the effects of that past. In this way, and given the involvement of key persons and from diverse sectors, we aim to exercise an impact at the local, regional and national level. 

The EdJAM network is important for the local processes; it is for this reason that the proposal of an exchange between U Yich Lu’um and Palabreras & Callejeras came up. This with the aim of strengthening artistic skills among girls and boys. With this organisation we will create an artistic laboratory in order to address issues related to the Mayan identity, linguistic revitalization and prevention of violence.  

Our dream as U Yich Lu’um is to establish our autonomous school with a curriculum that is alive. It is a decolonising school that includes diverse topics such as agroecology, gender perspective, human rights, linguistic revitalization, peace culture and local history. We are weaving this school from a respect towards the knowledges of local persons; above all, of girls and boys. Likewise, we think that the strengthening of our school can be achieved through the regional and international networks, for this reason we put faith in the experience exchange between diverse actors. 

Meet the team: