Success story
Between the mountains of Quiché and the laughter of women
Before becoming a volunteer, I worked in business development, digital marketing and human development coaching.
I helped women entrepreneurs discover themselves and better express themselves. However, despite these wonderful projects, I was missing something essential: the feeling that my daily life was fully aligned with my values and with the life I really wanted to lead.
Today, it is the Mayan women in the mountains of Quiché, Guatemala, who are showing me how a community tells its story through its products, its land and its silences.
A journey woven with encounters
For context, it should be noted that this is not my first experience with international volunteering. I started during the pandemic as a remote volunteer in Bolivia. It was only after my first virtual assignment in Guatemala that an opportunity presented itself: my first three-month in-person assignment. I was hooked!
So, during this first assignment, I travelled around different communities. In total, I visited around fifteen communities in less than ten weeks. Then I was offered another assignment, a twelve-month opportunity to work on developing women's economic empowerment. And so I embarked on this new adventure in the mountains of Guatemala.
Accepting this assignment wasn't just saying yes to a new project. It was a decision that transformed my life: leaving behind a more linear career path, shaking up my bearings and deliberately choosing a professional shift towards meaning, coherence and human impact.
My workplace is not just a point on a map. It stretches from the mountains of Quiché to the winding roads of Huehuetenango, from Chiché to Pachalum, from the communities of Sololá and Sacatepéquez to Guatemala City. Each place has offered me an encounter, a rhythm, a story to listen to.
What attracted me to volunteering
I have always been drawn to community life and helping others, ever since I was a child. This interest is in line with my professional career, but on a new scale: I wanted to put my skills to work for the community and give my job more direct and tangible meaning.
At one point, it became obvious: if I wanted my life and career to be more coherent, I had to dare to make a real, profound change. I didn't just want to ‘help’: I wanted to co-create, learn to listen differently and make this choice a real personal and professional turning point.
What I do here
I am currently working with the Centro Regional de Capacitación Para la Participación Comunitaria (CERCAP), which uses a participation model based on the philosophy and methodology of community participation developed by the Asociación para el Desarrollo Rural del Occidente (CDRO). In short, it is a regional community training centre that supports women's groups in the processing and marketing of local products.
CERCAP-CDRO's mission is to encourage comprehensive development in the region by strengthening community organisations, training human resources and promoting community participation in development processes.
A support for greater independence
This vision aligns directly with the Voluntary Cooperation Programme (PCV), which focuses on women's economic empowerment as a lever for sustainable change. By working to strengthen women's economic power, the PCV has established a strategic partnership with CERCAP-CDRO to maximise the impact of their respective interventions.
By supporting these women's groups in transforming and marketing their products, my mandate lies at the intersection of these two objectives: supporting stronger, more autonomous organisations and women who are taking their place in the local economy.
Together with my colleague Omar, we have supported organisations in several rural areas of Guatemala around Quetzaltenango and Totonicapán, among others.
Following training provided by CERCAP-CDRO, some organisations now produce natural shampoo, others make artisanal jam, and all share the same dream: to earn a decent living from their work. These concrete examples illustrate the objectives of my mandate: to promote women's economic empowerment by marketing their products and supporting female entrepreneurship. We will soon be supporting them in marketing their products.
Marketing is not just a matter of logos or labels; it is a process that enables these women to better position their products, access new markets and ultimately increase their income. This is where my expertise in marketing and digitalisation comes into its own.
What we are building together is not just better-selling products, but a more solid foundation: mutual trust, management and marketing skills, and the ability to defend the value of their work over time.
Our meetings often began around a kitchen table or under a strawberry tunnel, discussing marketing and challenges. But behind these discussions, there were always women. Mothers, sisters, entrepreneurs.
Behind every small shampoo, jam or craft business, there is a women's entrepreneurship project being built, often from very little, but with a lot of resilience and creativity. My mandate is precisely to support these initiatives so that they become more viable and more visible.
These stories, these faces, these products are not just fond memories of working with communities. They embody the goals of what I am doing here in Guatemala: supporting women's economic empowerment, equipping them to market their products, and supporting the emergence of strong female entrepreneurship, rooted in their realities and open to a world of possibilities.
Everyday challenges
The road has not always been easy, literally speaking! Guatemala's roads can sometimes be a real ordeal. We have to be creative in our approaches!
Other women feel isolated or discouraged when their work is not properly recognised.
We have had to rethink our models: how can we share resources? How can we set a fair price? It is a work in progress, a slow and sometimes frustrating process, but I often remind the teams and women's groups that as long as we are learning and moving forward, even in small steps, it is still progress. As I like to say with a smile, it's a ‘work in progress’: slow, imperfect, but very real.
There have been moments of tension, which lead us to rethink our ways of doing, thinking and reacting almost every moment. These intense moments also bring us closer together, as we work together towards a common goal.
The changes are not always visible overnight, but they are long-lasting: more structured groups, collective decision-making, women taking up more space in their communities' economic discussions.
Heart-warming successes
In Chamac, we visited a group of young women who want to change the course of their lives. Of the 30 women, 25 were under the age of 25.
Every new skill, every better-presented product, every sale made strengthens their ability to generate their own income and make economic decisions for themselves and their families. This is at the heart of the economic empowerment that my mandate aims to achieve.
My work in digitalisation and web marketing brings me into contact with women of heart, conviction and action! These women are weaving the future by putting their whole hearts into their art with great pride. Because, beyond the final product, there is the story of each of these craftswomen, their ancestors and their rich Mayan culture.
Beyond immediate income, it is the long-term impact that counts: the self-confidence that is built, the leadership that emerges, the new perspectives that open up. These women are no longer content to wait for opportunities to be given to them; they are learning to create them, seize them and defend them.
So every step, no matter how small, counts. Pride can be seen in their gestures, in the way they talk about their products, in the way they look at their own work.
And I learn something new every day...
Volunteering is not an act of giving, it is a mutual learning experience. The pace is very different from ours. You discover slowness, trust and the power of listening. You learn to deal with the unpredictable, to let go of certainties and to let go of things that are less important.
This assignment has taught me patience, flexibility, adaptability and the beauty of collective work.
He reminded me that development is not a straight line, but a delicate interweaving of cultures, knowledge and will. The idea is not to create dependency, but rather to support dynamics that will continue without me, with local partners and the women themselves as the main agents of change.
If I had to give one piece of advice
Don't go to save anyone. Go to listen, to have a personal and professional experience that will enrich you on many levels.
Bring your skills, but also your doubts. It was by embracing my own doubts that I dared to make this decision, which transformed my life and reoriented my career towards something that finally makes sense to me.
And let life surprise you!
Because sometimes, the greatest success is when a woman simply says to you:
‘I'm no longer afraid to sell my products on my own.’
Our partners
Thank you to our financial and implementation partners, without whom this project would not be possible. CECI's volunteer cooperation program is carried out in partnership with the Government of Canada.
