Guatemalan Youth Advocate for Conflict Resolution

Youth activists in Guatemala’s rural Western Highlands are demonstrating that they have the knowledge, experience and drive to play positive and productive roles in their communities. USAID’s Tejiendo Paz program supports youth through several grassroots strategies, such as increasing youth participation through the Voceros Juveniles network (Youth Voices for Peace) which has contributed to youth’s involvement in addressing social conflict in their communities. Working with USAID’s Tejiendo Paz, the Central American Institute of Studies for Social Democracy (Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios para la Democracia Social, DEMOS) grant to implement Voceros Juveniles contributed to strengthening youth communication and participation in decision-making spaces. The Peacebuilding Project, known in Spanish as Proyecto Tejiendo Paz, is designed to reduce social conflict and violence and strengthen social cohesion in the Western Highlands. It addresses the underlying causes of conflict in four general categories: youth, gender and families, governance, land, and natural resources. Tejiendo Paz is a 6.5-year U.S. Agency for International Development cooperative agreement implemented by Creative Associates International, Inc., in partnership with PartnersGlobal and ProPaz.