Grant Partners: Latin America

AC Esperanza promotes a culture of peace and gender equity through innovative programs for secondary school youth in Chimaltenango and their community.  Pangea’s grant supports the school’s academic and alternative programs, which include empowerment workshops for students, parents and community leaders, focusing on violence prevention, conflict resolution, gang avoidance, school dropout prevention and vocational training. In 2023, funds were used to focus on the school itself as well as a school bus since transportation costs have increased drastically due to the pandemic and many students reside in outlying areas.

Partner since 2016
2024 Grant Award: $2,000
Grant Goals: Quality secondary education in a marginalized community where gang violence, trafficking, early school abandonment, and illiteracy are common. Students learn academics, plus leadership, self-esteem, and non-violent life skills.
Visit the AC Esperanza Facebook page

MUSOR AC

MUSOR focuses on education, economic empowerment and health promotion for women and children living in poverty. It was founded by a group Mexican women professionals experienced in implementing projects related to basic reproductive and sexual health in marginalized communities. MUSOR has undertaken a project in the semi-urban municipality of Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, Oaxaca, with the leadership of an experienced local doctor. The project educates students, parents and teachers from some of the neediest local secondary schools on the importance of teenagers knowing their sexual and reproductive rights and responsibilities. Classes also emphasize issues including teen pregnancy, trafficking, violence against women, and gender equity. Top teen workshop graduates will become outreach advocates for ongoing peer follow up. Future workshops will focus on building a culture of peace with a focus on training for men and boys.

Partner since 2019
2024 Grant Award: $10,000
Grant Goals: Reproductive health education for marginalized groups, including gender-based violence prevention, teen pregnancy prevention (esp. in indigenous and rural areas with few government services), diabetes, breast cancer screening, pap smears, and domestic violence prevention. Provide access to legal abortions information and services, and distribution of low-cost reproductive health products.
Visit the Musor website

Taa’Pi’t

Taa’Pi’t is an intercultural learning center for Tz’utujil Mayan children. Children have the unique opportunity to gain computer literacy and to learn to care for “Our Mother Lake” (Lake Atitlán) through an environmental education program based on the Mayan cosmovision and built on the strengths of the Mayan culture. The benefits of these programs are far-reaching: profoundly changing the capabilities and attitudes of the children, influencing their families and the community, and helping to strengthen the Maya Tz’utujil cultural heritage. With Pangea project funds, Taa’ Pi’t is continuing to address the issue of undernourishment in the community by offering cooking classes, re-introducing healthy and traditional Mayan cuisine, and supporting local organic farmers.

Partner since 2019
2024 Grant Award: $10,000
Grant Goals: Educate Tzutujil Maya women and children in nutrition, health, culture, sustainable farming, women’s income generation, and environmental stewardship.
Visit the Taa’Pi’t website

UNOSJO

UNOSJO (Organization of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca) is an indigenous-led organization working with Zapotec communities to build local autonomy and to increase food security in the Juarez mountains of northern Oaxaca, Mexico. UNOSJO’s work integrates defense of territory against the forces of mega-projects, empowering women to serve in leadership positions in their communities, to combat gender violence and increase their economic autonomy. UNOSJO partners with other organizations to bring training to 22 communities related to bringing coffee to market, making soap, and harvesting mushrooms. They teach youth about cultivating kitchen gardens, emphasizing indigenous growing methods and traditional crops. Workshops promote lifting the role of women in the family and in the community.

Partner since 2019
2024 Grant Award: $10,000
Grant Goals: Intersectional work in defense of land rights against mining interests, training isolated rural communities in improving economic independence by bringing agriculture products to market, defending Zapotec language and culture, shifting attitudes of men and women to reduce gender violence, and encourage women to have a larger role in decision-making at all levels.

Recent Past Partners

ASOGEN, Guatemala
Fundacion Nueva Esperanza (FNE), Guatemala
Women’s Justice Initiative (WJI), Guatemala