ALIANZA

In the interest of promoting self-reliance for our partners, The Coffee Trust continually seeks to learn new methods of training our partners in self-managed development. We established an agreement with Alianza, an alliance between three organizations funded by the Catholic church, that have worked together since 2011 to systematize a methodology of community advocacy. Their focus is to ensure that communities discover their own priorities based upon their own values and their own uniqueness.  What makes their system interesting is the way they go about encouraging the groups they work with to select, manage, and evaluate their own projects. Each community that they work with takes responsibility for its own projects right from the very beginning. The organizations’ efforts are fundamentally built upon the goal of community-based, self-managed development, and emerged from an understanding that the Guatemalan government is not fulfilling those needs.

The Coffee Trust has entered into a dialogue with this alliance to learn about its methodology. The goal is to share the methodology with ACMUV, Vision Guatemala Atitlan, and with any other organizations that might work with The Coffee Trust in the future. The Coffee Trust will participate in a number of Alianza exchanges, trainings, visits, and even attend a school for Alianza promoters that teaches the methodology. The goal for The Coffee Trust is that eventually, the women’s groups we work with will be planning and implementing their community projects according to their own priorities, their own values, and their own cultures.