|
subject index of papers
From the Grassroots: Tere Martínez and CEDESA
by Holly Yasui
Teresa (Tere) Martínez was 12 years old in 1960 when she started teaching literacy classes in her rural community of La Grulla, where there were no schools. At that time, about 95% of the campesinos in northern Guanajuato were illiterate, suffered from unattended health problems and had few or no public services. Over the course of twelve years, Tere taught thousands of students, adults as well as young people. Since then, she has committed her life to popular education and community development at the Centro de Desarrollo Agropecuario (CEDESA), which has changed the face of northern Guanajuato.
Tere's parents sent all nine of their children to school in "the city" of Dolores Hidalgo under the tutelage of their grandmother who had a house there. Tere completed the third grade, enough to learn to read and write. In 1959, Father Guillermo Dávalos - affectionately known as "Padre Memo" - assumed the role of director of rural pastoral work in Dolores. In the tradition of Liberation Theology, he advocated programs to improve the lives of the campesinos, including the literacy program for which Tere was one of the first teachers.
Padre Memo organized community development courses and brought a young activist from the national Christian Youth Association, Luz Maria (Lucha) Rivera from Michoacan to help promote them. The workshops covered diverse subjects: group discussion techniques, campesino and women's issues, community enterprises such as animal husbandry, food preservation, carpentry, sewing, etc. Although terratenientes (large landowners) and priests in their service opposed them, Padre Memo received support from various agencies to buy land and build a center dedicated to campesino programs. In 1965, CEDESA was legally constituted, at first primarily of professionals from Dolores but by the end of the decade, they decided that campesinos should be in charge of their own development. In 1970, Tere Martínez joined Lucha Rivera on the board of CEDESA and two years later, Tere's younger sister, Graciela (Chela) joined them. |
|
 Tere, Padre Memo and Lucha in the 1960s.
Chela and Padre Memo
|
After more than a decade of organizing in the communities, by 1972 twenty-five rural schools were built in northern Guanajuato, and CEDESA handed over its literacy program to the federal government, which finally took up its responsibility to provide basic education. In 1973, the worldwide "oil shock" threw the Mexican economy into a tailspin, causing precipitous price increases for food and other basic necessities. CEDESA started alternative food-production projects such as beekeeping, vegetable gardens and rabbit-raising. The most successful was beekeeping; after the second harvest of honey, they started a Revolving Loan Fund with the newly organized Beekeepers Union, promoting food self-sufficiency and protection of the environment. Other projects CEDESA undertook at this time were the creation of a cooperative corn-grinding mill; an ongoing workshop on health and natural foods; and the first International Meeting of Latin American women at the CEDESA facilities, which were completed in 1979.
the corn-grinding mill cooperative
In the 1980s, CEDESA helped organize the Union of Campesino Communities in order to fight for drinking water and land rights. These movements met with direct repression by the government - arrests and evictions by state and federal police and the army. But by the end of the decade, more than 50 communities in northern Guanajuato had wells, and campesinos won the right to live on and work their land, in spite of powerful opposition by wealthy landowners and conservative clergy, who carried out campaigns of defamation against the CEDESA team, calling them communists and thieves for "stealing" the boss's land.
CEDESA nonetheless continued to support the movements for water and land, and since the 1990s has also focused on creating a self-sufficient campesino economy. This has included applying eco-technologies, especially for the conservation of water, and creating alternative community markets with emphasis on solidarity between organic producer and consumer cooperatives.
| In the new millenium, CEDESA has emphasized grass-roots involvement based on the needs of families in the communities, developing the "productive ecological campesino home," and providing workshops on subjects like environmental sustainability, accounting and administration, alternative medicine, agrarian rights and local politics. |
|
Chela, Lucha, and Tere |
When asked about the greatest challenge in her lifetime of activism, Tere says it has been to overcome individualism in order to develop social consciousness and commitment to the common good. Her greatest satisfaction has been to help other campesinos, especially women, to actively participate in their self-development and development of their communties. She feels that the greatest need in the campo today is to advance the project of sustainable self-sufficiency among campesino families.
 |
|
In the future, CEDESA hopes to create an eco-village, a campesino university, a regional market using barter and social coin, and to promote "Tierra Generosa," a project that proposes the recovery of human work with the earth in order to restore the productivity of the region and eliminate the need to emigrate. CEDESA is also interested in encouraging rural tourism, to share their experiences with others and to help finance their programs. |
"I was impressed with the work CEDESA is doing," says Jack Klee, who visited CEDESA in January. "The fact that about 90% of the population from rural communities go to the U.S. to work made us aware of how families have been torn apart for that reason. The family we visited can stay together because they've implemented and benefited from the CEDESA model."
"I enjoyed visiting the campesino family and seeing the work of CEDESA in action," says Lydia Carey. "I was moved by what they said about reclaiming their future … how they no longer see money as the a top priority, but rather the connectedness between themselves and the land, and among themselves."
The Center for Global Justice will visit CEDESA on Saturday, February 23, leaving from its office at Calzada de la Luz #42 at 9AM and returning at 5 PM. Tickets available at the office Mon-Fri, 10am-1pm, $400 pesos includes transportation, lunch, translation and guides. For more information call 150-0025 or write info@globaljusticecenter.org.
Members of the Center for Global Justice at CEDESA. From left to right: Sandra Price, Yolanda Millán, Ilian Barrera, Angelina Soto, Betsy Bowman, Sallie Latch.
subject index of papers
|
