The Guatemala Partnership is a transnational community that includes members of the First Congregational Church of Natick and Santa María Tzejá (SMT), a small predominately K’iche’ speaking Mayan community in the northern Ixcán region of Guatemala with approximately 1,300 residents.
The people of SMT have a long history of collective struggle towards independence and social justice, starting in the late 1960’s with their formation of a cooperative, and their subsequent successful fight to obtain title to their lands in the 1970’s. The partnership began in 1987 and members of FCCN visit SMT each February.
Through the Guatemala Partnership, our congregation is working in solidarity with SMT to support education and development in their community. As part of this effort, we also seek to unlearn stereotypes held by the global north toward the global south, and to bring home the impact that US history and policy has had on other parts of the world.