The Women’s Commission of ACG was created through the initiatives of a group of women in the Huehuetenango department. They responded in August of 1993 to an invitation that was extended by the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico. This invitation called them to a general assembly of an organization of Mayan women in the area. They returned enthusiastic with the level of organization of the delegates at that meeting and asked the coordinator of ACG about the creation of their own organization within the structure of ACG.

Their objective at that time was to organize and mobilize the women to work for peace, justice, the defense of the rights of the poor population, and at the same time contribute to the transformation of the society to respect the values and the rights of the indigenous population. Their first years were years of training and organization of groups of women in the communities of Huehuetenango, el Quiché, Alta Verapaz, in the communities in resistance (CPR) in the Ixcán and in the refugee camps in the Mexican states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Chiapas. At the same time they participated actively in the peace process, in the mobilization for the return of the refugee families and in the public recognition of the communities in resistance.

With the return of the refugees and the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996, the women of ACG dedicated their efforts and strengths to development and looking for a means to increase family incomes through a series of small productive projects.

It is worth it to mention some of these projects that they began and maintain with much enthusiasm and success.

A system of micro-credit and savings based of the Grameen scheme that helps women to finance small productive projects. This service was begun with a one-year experimental project that involved 23 women. The program was a great success. In 2004 the number of women grew to 130 in 8 communities and our goal for 2005 is to have 400 women participating in the program. The majority of these women invest their loans in the raising of barnyard animas or in small businesses like the fabrication of clay pots, selling of vegetables in the regional market, tortilla selling, or arts. At the same time we offer our partners training sessions in technical development of their projects.

The Ecological Agro Center “San Carolus Borromeus”. On the 8th of March 2004 we inaugurated this center that will serve as an experimental organic farm to service the 36 communities. The center will search for new sources of organic production, seeds, and animals for the communities. At the same time it will train in the production, consumption, transformation, and commercialization of these products. Up to this moment we have trained 52 promoters in organic agronomy and zoology. It is the job of each promoter to organize in their community a group on culture, study, and production (ACG-CEP), to assure that all the families benefit from the trainings.

The center not only promotes organic production, but also the use of appropriate technologies like "improved stoves". A report from the organization Oxfam found that 500 people require one kilometer of forest each year to satisfy their firewood needs and that each person needs between 600-900 kilos of firewood annually. With the better stoves project it is possible for the people to use only a third of this amount as well as preventing the sicknesses caused by smoke and flames. In addition, each family is able to save on their expenses for firewood.

February 11th-13th, 2005 we celebrated the ACG headquarters in Santa Cruz del Quiché the 5th Agropecuario Workshop. The theme was the sewing, harvest, elaboration, and commercialization of the ancestral seed, the amaranth that was a large part of the diet of the Mayan ancestors. The Spaniards prohibited its cultivation after the invasion, and the fields of amaranth were burned or destroyed. Our hope is to revive the use of this very important food for its high value in protein and minerals, its rapid growth and its extraordinary resistance to drought and sicknesses. Before the month of May the facilitators will celebrate 3 more regional workshops on the same theme in the zones of the Ixcán, Barillas, and Alta Verapaz and will promote study in the CEPs. The experimental sewing of the amaranth will be in the months of May and June this year.

In addition, the courtyard animals project and better stoves project are under the responsibility of the Center. From 2002-2003, 585 women in 22 communities received a total of 2,908 animals and training in their breeding and care. The chosen animals of the women were sheep, milk goats, chickens, and rabbits. In May of 2003 the “passing of the chain” was begun, when each benefiting women passed the first offspring of their animal on to another woman in the community.

This year we hope to open a second center, the Ecological Agro Center “Domingo Us Quixán” in the jungle of the Ixcán in order to better attend the necessities of the zones of the Ixcán and Alta Verapaz.