Natik: Small is beautiful
Greetings!
Today is the day scheduled for my mid-month email and I thought it would be fun to weave in the fact that today September 15th is Guatemalan Independence Day and tomorrow is Mexico’s.
That sent me into an hour of clicking through a vast digital sea of articles, summaries, and quotes. By the time I realized I needed to extract myself and start writing, I had so many ideas for subjects that my synapses were having a full-on Independence Day Pyrotechnic Event!
So I put on my “I’m a grownup” hat and decided a simple solution would be to center today’s reflections around Rigoberta Rigoberta Menchú Tum.
Rigoberta is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was born in 1959. She championed the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996). Her outspoken criticism of the government put her life in danger and in1981 was forced to escape to Mexico. Since then, she has continued to be an international advocate of Indigenous rights.
Below is a great quote by Rigoberta:
There is no peace without justice; There is no justice without fairness; There is no fairness without development; There is no development without democracy; There is no democracy without respect for the identity and the dignity of all cultures and peoples.
Sometimes people ask us if Natik “makes a statistically significant dent” on regional poverty, illiteracy, exclusion, and violence. Our response is that we are too small to affect national statistics, but we are big enough to make a difference in the lives of every person whose lives are touched by our partners.
In other words, we are involved at the level of "respect for the identity and the dignity of all cultures and peoples" that Rigoberta said are necessary components of peace and justice.
Our partners establish infrastructures that integrate education into the local culture and language; NOT as an expedient way of extinguishing or eclipsing the local culture. Our partners contribute to individuals being able to live dignified lives through infrastructures that honor local options for health and sustainable livelihoods.
Rigoberta is a perfect example of the power of one.
Even though her parents could not read or write, she was recognized as bright and promising by some Belgian nuns. Despite her family’s poverty, she was able to stay in the convent for a year and attended school through the first year of junior high. In 1992, at 33, Rigoberta won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Latin American woman and Indian to do so. Rigoberta acknowledged the prize as an homage to the struggles of indigenous people everywhere, and of indigenous women in particular.
The moral of that story is that Small is Beautiful. From our perspective, small is totally, thoroughly, absolutely integrated into the community. The organizations we support are small, and they are run by young leaders who have chosen to quietly and diligently work toward culturally-grounded, generational changes in their home communities.
I rest my case.
And from our partners in Mexico and Guatemala: Happy Independence Day!
Saludos,
✨🦋✨Anita Smart
Executive Director