“Having had the ability to go to Guatemala was a tremendously transformative experience that challenged me to contextualize the varied struggles that women face in the country and further inspire me to continue solidarity work here in the U.S.”
Deepening the political education of members of U.S. activists, who travel to Guatemala, engage with Guatemalan movements, and bring those lessons home for critical cross-border solidarity.
Members of the NISGUA network visit Guatemalan communities and organizations that seek justice and accountability, an end to impunity, and stand in defense of life and territory. Typically spanning 10 days, the visit to Guatemala offers the opportunity to deepen our understanding of the realities faced by Guatemalan and indigenous communities in their fight for self-determination and human rights. NISGUA delegations respond to the call of Guatemalan organizations for international solidarity and form part of a multi-faceted strategy to protect and expand political space and obtain greater security for their organizing efforts.
Our delegations are made up of activists who are interested in integrating international solidarity into their local organizing. We support participants to connect learnings to their own political work through interactive workshops and guided opportunities for reflection. Participants return home with a deepened understanding and practice of solidarity, equipped with new resources to effectively and strategically stand with Guatemalan human rights and environmental defenders as an international community that continues to work for social change from within the U.S.
Past delegations
2017: Women and the work of liberation in Guatemala
This delegation in 2017 allowed for horizontal exchange with women-led social movements in Guatemala, while exploring the dynamic strategies, resilience practices, and forms of organizing they use in the fight to build a world free from gendered violence, state repression, and environmental degradation.
2016: Communities rise up against the Escobal mine
Our 2016 delegation met with communities working to prevent the operation and expansion of Canadian-U.S. company Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine in southeastern Guatemala, through popular education, grassroots action, and the organizing of community referenda. Read more.
2016: NISGUA Sponsoring Community UUCA – PAG
This 10-day delegation with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington (UUCA), home to NISGUA Sponsoring Community, Partners for Arlington and Guatemala (PAG), met with NISGUA partners and several human rights and environmental defenders organizations receiving international accompaniment. Read more.
2015: Cultural resistance to the Xalalá Dam
Latest from delegations
2019 NISGUA Delegation: Environmental Indigenous Leadership Exchange
This March, NISGUA partnered with New Mexico State University to host a week-long exchange between Indigenous undergraduate students and Maya Q'eqchi', Mam, Q'anjob'al, and K'iche' environmental defenders. Ten NMSU students visited with NISGUA partners in the Chixoy and Copón Rivers watershed to learn about their grassroots organizing model that [...]
NISGUA partners with New Mexico State University for Indigenous delegation to Guatemala
This March 23-30, NISGUA is partnering with New Mexico State University to host a week-long exchange between Indigenous undergraduate students and Mayan environmental defenders. Ten NMSU students will visit with NISGUA partners in the Chixoy and Copón Rivers watershed to learn about their grassroots organizing model that builds community-level [...]
Communities Rise Up: Report-back on NISGUA’s delegation to communities organized in resistance to Tahoe Resources
In the fall of 2015, Llan Carlos Dávila from the Diocesan Committee in Defense of Nature (CODIDENA) toured the U.S. to speak about CODIDENA’s efforts to stop the development and expansion of Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine in southeastern Guatemala. Dávila spoke about popular education, grassroots action, and the organizing of [...]
Sponsoring Communities take action: UUCA and NISGUA together in Guatemala
One of the pillars of international human rights accompaniment is the backing of a strong and active international network that commits to ongoing education of the international community about the human rights context of those we accompany, monitors the specific situations of those human rights defenders, and is ready [...]
A report-back on NISGUA’s Rivers for Life Delegation
When Víctor Caal Tzuy came to the U.S. last fall to speak about indigenous peoples’ fight for self-determination in Guatemala, he ended many of his presentations by inviting people to his home to see for themselves how and why more than 50 communities have united in opposition to the [...]
NISGUA leads delegation with UUCA to Guatemala
UUCA delegates gather with NISGUA staff in Antigua. All photos: David McTaggart This past December, NISGUA organized and hosted a ten-day delegation with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington (UUCA), home to NISGUA Sponsoring Community, Partners for Arlington and Guatemala (PAG). Twelve members of the UUCA congregation formed the [...]