“The solutions must be holistic in nature, where family systems coupled with green technology and agro-ecology are developed in an environment of gender equality and social justice, in order to make these livelihood systems viable and sustainable.” ~ Claudia Ramos and Tania Gonzalez
WASI Delegate: Mexico
Claudia Ramos Guillén is an agroecologist who joins WASI as a delegate from Chiapas, Mexico where she works with Otros Mundos, and NGO working with local and rural communities to search for and act to implement viable alternatives to the social, economic, political, and environmental crisis wrought by unbalanced international and national policy structures. Claudia is in her second year with Otros Mundos, wearing two hats as their Facilitator for the Peoples School of Water and Energy and the Facilitator for the Alternative Family Systems Network. Since 2007 she has been utilizing her experience in alternative family systems, water and forestry management, and agro-forestal design for rural and indigenous communities.
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WASI Delegate: Mexico
Tania Elena Gonzalez Flores also joins WASI from Chiapas, Mexico, where she is an agroecologist working with Otros Mundos. Since 2007 she has been dedicated to local development of communities in los Altos de Chiapas, participating in the facilitation of appropriate techniques and technologies for sustainable water and forestry management. More recently, she has been working in agroecoloy and food sovereignty.
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What are the next steps for your organization?
In our walk as an organization, we have seen the great necessity that the communities have at the local level to be able to autonomously develop different ways of life that extend to include factors like quality of life and satisfaction, both of which are often related to the lived environment. We have fostered relationships groups and families that have shown an enormous interest in alternative construction systems and recovering ancient, local knowledges that have already developed to adapt to their environment. We intend to develop community meeting centers to enable the indigenous organizations and rural associations with whom we work to have a location for information and knowledge-sharing. With momentum and the network from WASI, we can further the development of our Alter-Natos operations and foster a new era of urban-rural relationships.
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What is it that you do now that relates to WASI and how will your participation with WASI benefit you and your community?
Otros Mundos encourages the formation of a Alternative and Sustainable Family Systems Network with indigenous, peasant, and urban families, where holistic alternatives are proposed using agroecological production, efficient use of water and energy, recognition of rights, values and cultures in order to regain balance with nature, and to truly ensure sustainable human development for future generations. Participating in WASI offers Otros Mundos the opportunity to further enrich and articulate the alternative building experience; also, the experience is critical, as the learning opportunity deepens our responsibility and commitment to pass on natural building skills with more people groups, which is the most significant and most desired outcome.
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Why is partnership-building and collaboration important for you, your community and/or the world?
Bonds of solidarity are strengthened through partnership. The environment crisis which we are facing is not limited to our locales, but is global, and in order to stop it is it necessary to confront it, talk and dialogue between organizations, movements and individuals in order to share challenges, experiences, successes and together build solutions. We are many, and must educate ourselves and build a collective conscience for the power of our words and actions to improve the health of Mother Earth.
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Why is leadership by women important for you, your community, and/or the world?
The hegemonic global system is predatory and patricarchal, predisposing a certain relationship to nature; it is necessary to find new ways to communicate with the Earth which are directly related to changes in gender relations. There are no alternative or sustainability without gender equality in social, political, economic, environmental, and cultural participation.
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Support
To support Claudia and Tania´s fundraising efforts to get to Patagonia and back, please click here.
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Find Out More…
To learn more about Otros Mundos please visit http://www.otrosmundoschiapas.org/index.php
