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THE BASICS
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Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala: See How We Did It
Our Methods Explained
Feminist MEAL methodologies challenge traditional ways of gathering information, as well as the typical power dynamics within data collection. In this case, power shifted to the Indigenous women who were part of the member organizations of Tz’ununija’, changing how information was produced and what it was used for.
One of the fundamental tools for determining the project baseline was Oxfam Canada’s Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organizational Strengthening (CAT4GJO), a tool designed to carry out a participatory self-assessment of an organization’s capacities to undertake the work of gender justice. It is a guided tool used to structure a dialogue about current organizational capacities, strengths, weaknesses and gaps. The CAT4GJO tool is structured around six domains Meaning of the term "six domains" The six domains are Women’s Transformative Leadership, Gender-Just Structures and Processes, Organizational Resilience and Sustainability, Strategic Gender Justice Relationships and Linkages, Transformative Gender Justice Programming and Advocacy, and Safeguarding. Learn more here: https://www.oxfam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Oxfam-Canada-Capacity-Assessment-Tool.pdf . These domains are then divided into 22 different capacity areas. Using the CAT4GJO allows organizations to better understand their current capacities under each of these domains, which, in turn, allows them to design action plans for effectively strengthening these capacities. Its premise is the importance of shifting power for project design and implementation to local organizations, in this case to Tz’ununija’ and the local Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
Of 20 Tz’ununija’ member organizations participating in the project, Tz’ununija’ strategically selected five of the organizations based on criteria that would allow Tz’ununija’ itself and the most diversified representation of its members to take part in the CAT4GJO process. The project supported a CAT4GJO process led by and for Tz’ununija’ and the five local Indigenous women’s rights member organizations. Their level of ownership of the CAT4GJO process has shown that the process is just as important as the results.
In its original form, the CAT4GJO didn’t respond to the type of dialogue that Tz’ununija’ members were interested in having about gender justice within their organizations. The methodology itself also didn’t consider the global pandemic that Tz’ununija’ members were submerged in at the time, like many other organizations around the world. Each adaptation of the tool became necessary to transform it into something that truly worked for and belonged to Tz’ununija’. The tool and methodology that Tz’ununija’ developed became entirely unique to Tz’ununija’ and its member organizations by the end of the CAT4GJO process.
Prior to rolling out the CAT4GJO, Tz’ununija’ organized a series of healing sessions with leaders from the Indigenous women’s rights organizations to address the heightened stress, care work and violence that women might be facing due to lockdown. Some of these key healing techniques were incorporated into the CAT4GJO process.
Tz’ununija’ and its members carefully selected an image for each concept that allowed participants to follow along in their notebooks and discuss their ideas, regardless of literacy level. When partners ranked their organization’s strengths and weaknesses, they used Mayan numbering and a traffic light system to allow them to better understand where to prioritize further action. Further, their approach Meaning of the term "approach" Maya invocations are spiritual and temporal reckonings carried out by Maya peoples to acknowledge ancestors and nahuales (companion spirits) and count and take stock of time as per the Maya calendar. See https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/15294?lang=en included an exercise that marks the beginning of each workshop to analyze the energy of the day from a Mayan perspective, adapted language and inclusion of self-care techniques throughout the workshops and working with the political council to validate each capacity-strengthening plan to ensure that they are all tied into strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement as a whole. A voting system allowed participants from each organization to vote individually over the phone. The purpose of this vote was to create partner-specific action plans with targeted focus areas.
By the end of the process, not only was baseline data produced, but the women’s rights organizations are implementing capacity-strengthening plans that consider the whole network of Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout Guatemala.
“We are waking up, and our knowledge is getting stronger.”
-Maya Pocomchi’ Women’s Committee member during their Capacity Strengthening Plan design at the end of the CAT4GJO workshop
Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the baseline process, the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement, the local member organizations and staff from Oxfam all agreed that shifting power to the Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout the baseline process allowed the Tz’ununija’ members to have complete ownership over the tools. By adapting them, they were able to produce knowledge that served a higher purpose than just gathering baseline data. Instead, this knowledge is actively contributing to strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement.
The lessons learned below encompass the documented learnings from the entire baseline process, from Tz’ununija’, from the women’s rights organizations and from Oxfam.
The importance of knowledge emerging from a collective process that considers the cultural and linguistic context
All tools and methodologies need to be adapted to facilitate greater understanding and ownership of the data being generated by and for the use of Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
This includes:
- Hiring external teams to support, not lead, and who are able to communicate in the language of each women’s rights organization.
- Producing communication materials, such as newsletters summarizing findings, or much more visual reports using infographics and videos to tell the story, which allows for Oxfam to be more accountable to the communities who are taking part in these processes. In particular, by sharing the results and findings in visually-friendly formats that recognize varying literacy levels, women’s rights organizations can more easily share and discuss the findings within their movements.
- Prioritizing what is important for the Indigenous women’s rights organizations. For example, Mayan invocations being included in all data collecting and sense-making workshops.
This means that Oxfam needed to adopt a flexible approach that respects that Tz’ununija’ does not identify as feminist and, instead, explicitly roots its approach in the lived experiences of Indigenous women in Guatemala. From Oxfam’s perspective, this is still very much aligned with our understanding of a feminist MEAL approach despite the organizations involved not being feminist-identified.
"The different spaces where knowledge is generated allows us to lose our fear to participate. With Tz’ununija’, we’ve gained more knowledge and more energy to participate.”
San Luis Women’s Committee member during CAT4GJO workshop
"So that we all awaken, so that with our voice and our strength we continue to nurture our energy.”
Ketzali Awalb’iitz –Pocomam singer-songwriter during Tz’ununija’s #AquiEstamos5Sep campaign.
Ensure adequate time, support and resourcing for a feminist approach
Despite allowing for more time than would be typically given for a baseline process, even that longer timeline needed to be extended given the project’s many challenges. This allowed for contextualizing, adapting, piloting, transcribing, translating, documenting, analyzing, reviewing and validating project tools and data with the women’s rights organizations. It is important to acknowledge that the ways of working, rhythms and pace of local Indigenous groups differ from those of traditional donor compliance requirements and, thus, may require a shift in approach to reporting deadlines and structures as part of shifting power to the organizations. It is also important to recognize that these constraints were heightened by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and two tropical storms in the rural areas of Guatemala. Health crises and environmental catastrophes are unfortunately not uncommon for women living in poverty in marginalized communities, and it is important to build in time for healing and self-care throughout the process.
“It is important to strengthen not only political capacities but also the technical capacities of Indigenous women so we can create proposals that promote the rights of Indigenous women.”
-Patzún Women’s Network member in self-documented story.
Feminist MEAL Foundations
The process involved in developing the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala baseline report integrated all of Oxfam Canada’s feminist MEAL foundations to varying degrees.
In particular, the baseline study emphasized that feminist MEAL is an approach. The success of this baseline study illustrates that using a feminist MEAL approach does not require labelling MEAL work as “feminist”, especially in contexts where a Canadian understanding of “feminist” may not match well with a locally-held understanding. Instead of emphasizing terminology, this baseline focused on processes that ensured that the following foundations were prominent in this work:
The baseline study was led by Tz’ununija’, who coordinated directly with the participating women’s rights organizations, allowing the entire process to be tailored to the organizations’ needs. This was even more visible during the COVID-19 lockdown protocol period in Guatemala.
The process was co-coordinated by Tz’ununija’, who were the real protagonists in information gathering. The role of the external consultant team focused on documenting the process and drafting the final report.
The baseline study was conducted in the participants’ language whenever possible. In addition, in each virtual and face-to-face activity, a spiritual invocation was performed to incorporate the Indigenous worldviews represented in the Tz’ununija’ movement.
Learn More about Feminist MEAL Foundations
Read about our Feminist MEAL Foundations in more depth in Oxfam Canada’s Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL.
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TRACKING IMPACT
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Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala: See How We Did It
Our Methods Explained
Feminist MEAL methodologies challenge traditional ways of gathering information, as well as the typical power dynamics within data collection. In this case, power shifted to the Indigenous women who were part of the member organizations of Tz’ununija’, changing how information was produced and what it was used for.
One of the fundamental tools for determining the project baseline was Oxfam Canada’s Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organizational Strengthening (CAT4GJO), a tool designed to carry out a participatory self-assessment of an organization’s capacities to undertake the work of gender justice. It is a guided tool used to structure a dialogue about current organizational capacities, strengths, weaknesses and gaps. The CAT4GJO tool is structured around six domains Meaning of the term "six domains" The six domains are Women’s Transformative Leadership, Gender-Just Structures and Processes, Organizational Resilience and Sustainability, Strategic Gender Justice Relationships and Linkages, Transformative Gender Justice Programming and Advocacy, and Safeguarding. Learn more here: https://www.oxfam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Oxfam-Canada-Capacity-Assessment-Tool.pdf . These domains are then divided into 22 different capacity areas. Using the CAT4GJO allows organizations to better understand their current capacities under each of these domains, which, in turn, allows them to design action plans for effectively strengthening these capacities. Its premise is the importance of shifting power for project design and implementation to local organizations, in this case to Tz’ununija’ and the local Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
Of 20 Tz’ununija’ member organizations participating in the project, Tz’ununija’ strategically selected five of the organizations based on criteria that would allow Tz’ununija’ itself and the most diversified representation of its members to take part in the CAT4GJO process. The project supported a CAT4GJO process led by and for Tz’ununija’ and the five local Indigenous women’s rights member organizations. Their level of ownership of the CAT4GJO process has shown that the process is just as important as the results.
In its original form, the CAT4GJO didn’t respond to the type of dialogue that Tz’ununija’ members were interested in having about gender justice within their organizations. The methodology itself also didn’t consider the global pandemic that Tz’ununija’ members were submerged in at the time, like many other organizations around the world. Each adaptation of the tool became necessary to transform it into something that truly worked for and belonged to Tz’ununija’. The tool and methodology that Tz’ununija’ developed became entirely unique to Tz’ununija’ and its member organizations by the end of the CAT4GJO process.
Prior to rolling out the CAT4GJO, Tz’ununija’ organized a series of healing sessions with leaders from the Indigenous women’s rights organizations to address the heightened stress, care work and violence that women might be facing due to lockdown. Some of these key healing techniques were incorporated into the CAT4GJO process.
Tz’ununija’ and its members carefully selected an image for each concept that allowed participants to follow along in their notebooks and discuss their ideas, regardless of literacy level. When partners ranked their organization’s strengths and weaknesses, they used Mayan numbering and a traffic light system to allow them to better understand where to prioritize further action. Further, their approach Meaning of the term "approach" Maya invocations are spiritual and temporal reckonings carried out by Maya peoples to acknowledge ancestors and nahuales (companion spirits) and count and take stock of time as per the Maya calendar. See https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/15294?lang=en included an exercise that marks the beginning of each workshop to analyze the energy of the day from a Mayan perspective, adapted language and inclusion of self-care techniques throughout the workshops and working with the political council to validate each capacity-strengthening plan to ensure that they are all tied into strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement as a whole. A voting system allowed participants from each organization to vote individually over the phone. The purpose of this vote was to create partner-specific action plans with targeted focus areas.
By the end of the process, not only was baseline data produced, but the women’s rights organizations are implementing capacity-strengthening plans that consider the whole network of Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout Guatemala.
“We are waking up, and our knowledge is getting stronger.”
-Maya Pocomchi’ Women’s Committee member during their Capacity Strengthening Plan design at the end of the CAT4GJO workshop
Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the baseline process, the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement, the local member organizations and staff from Oxfam all agreed that shifting power to the Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout the baseline process allowed the Tz’ununija’ members to have complete ownership over the tools. By adapting them, they were able to produce knowledge that served a higher purpose than just gathering baseline data. Instead, this knowledge is actively contributing to strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement.
The lessons learned below encompass the documented learnings from the entire baseline process, from Tz’ununija’, from the women’s rights organizations and from Oxfam.
The importance of knowledge emerging from a collective process that considers the cultural and linguistic context
All tools and methodologies need to be adapted to facilitate greater understanding and ownership of the data being generated by and for the use of Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
This includes:
- Hiring external teams to support, not lead, and who are able to communicate in the language of each women’s rights organization.
- Producing communication materials, such as newsletters summarizing findings, or much more visual reports using infographics and videos to tell the story, which allows for Oxfam to be more accountable to the communities who are taking part in these processes. In particular, by sharing the results and findings in visually-friendly formats that recognize varying literacy levels, women’s rights organizations can more easily share and discuss the findings within their movements.
- Prioritizing what is important for the Indigenous women’s rights organizations. For example, Mayan invocations being included in all data collecting and sense-making workshops.
This means that Oxfam needed to adopt a flexible approach that respects that Tz’ununija’ does not identify as feminist and, instead, explicitly roots its approach in the lived experiences of Indigenous women in Guatemala. From Oxfam’s perspective, this is still very much aligned with our understanding of a feminist MEAL approach despite the organizations involved not being feminist-identified.
"The different spaces where knowledge is generated allows us to lose our fear to participate. With Tz’ununija’, we’ve gained more knowledge and more energy to participate.”
San Luis Women’s Committee member during CAT4GJO workshop
"So that we all awaken, so that with our voice and our strength we continue to nurture our energy.”
Ketzali Awalb’iitz –Pocomam singer-songwriter during Tz’ununija’s #AquiEstamos5Sep campaign.
Ensure adequate time, support and resourcing for a feminist approach
Despite allowing for more time than would be typically given for a baseline process, even that longer timeline needed to be extended given the project’s many challenges. This allowed for contextualizing, adapting, piloting, transcribing, translating, documenting, analyzing, reviewing and validating project tools and data with the women’s rights organizations. It is important to acknowledge that the ways of working, rhythms and pace of local Indigenous groups differ from those of traditional donor compliance requirements and, thus, may require a shift in approach to reporting deadlines and structures as part of shifting power to the organizations. It is also important to recognize that these constraints were heightened by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and two tropical storms in the rural areas of Guatemala. Health crises and environmental catastrophes are unfortunately not uncommon for women living in poverty in marginalized communities, and it is important to build in time for healing and self-care throughout the process.
“It is important to strengthen not only political capacities but also the technical capacities of Indigenous women so we can create proposals that promote the rights of Indigenous women.”
-Patzún Women’s Network member in self-documented story.
Feminist MEAL Foundations
The process involved in developing the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala baseline report integrated all of Oxfam Canada’s feminist MEAL foundations to varying degrees.
In particular, the baseline study emphasized that feminist MEAL is an approach. The success of this baseline study illustrates that using a feminist MEAL approach does not require labelling MEAL work as “feminist”, especially in contexts where a Canadian understanding of “feminist” may not match well with a locally-held understanding. Instead of emphasizing terminology, this baseline focused on processes that ensured that the following foundations were prominent in this work:
The baseline study was led by Tz’ununija’, who coordinated directly with the participating women’s rights organizations, allowing the entire process to be tailored to the organizations’ needs. This was even more visible during the COVID-19 lockdown protocol period in Guatemala.
The process was co-coordinated by Tz’ununija’, who were the real protagonists in information gathering. The role of the external consultant team focused on documenting the process and drafting the final report.
The baseline study was conducted in the participants’ language whenever possible. In addition, in each virtual and face-to-face activity, a spiritual invocation was performed to incorporate the Indigenous worldviews represented in the Tz’ununija’ movement.
Learn More about Feminist MEAL Foundations
Read about our Feminist MEAL Foundations in more depth in Oxfam Canada’s Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL.
BIG WINS
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Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala: See How We Did It
Our Methods Explained
Feminist MEAL methodologies challenge traditional ways of gathering information, as well as the typical power dynamics within data collection. In this case, power shifted to the Indigenous women who were part of the member organizations of Tz’ununija’, changing how information was produced and what it was used for.
One of the fundamental tools for determining the project baseline was Oxfam Canada’s Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organizational Strengthening (CAT4GJO), a tool designed to carry out a participatory self-assessment of an organization’s capacities to undertake the work of gender justice. It is a guided tool used to structure a dialogue about current organizational capacities, strengths, weaknesses and gaps. The CAT4GJO tool is structured around six domains Meaning of the term "six domains" The six domains are Women’s Transformative Leadership, Gender-Just Structures and Processes, Organizational Resilience and Sustainability, Strategic Gender Justice Relationships and Linkages, Transformative Gender Justice Programming and Advocacy, and Safeguarding. Learn more here: https://www.oxfam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Oxfam-Canada-Capacity-Assessment-Tool.pdf . These domains are then divided into 22 different capacity areas. Using the CAT4GJO allows organizations to better understand their current capacities under each of these domains, which, in turn, allows them to design action plans for effectively strengthening these capacities. Its premise is the importance of shifting power for project design and implementation to local organizations, in this case to Tz’ununija’ and the local Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
Of 20 Tz’ununija’ member organizations participating in the project, Tz’ununija’ strategically selected five of the organizations based on criteria that would allow Tz’ununija’ itself and the most diversified representation of its members to take part in the CAT4GJO process. The project supported a CAT4GJO process led by and for Tz’ununija’ and the five local Indigenous women’s rights member organizations. Their level of ownership of the CAT4GJO process has shown that the process is just as important as the results.
In its original form, the CAT4GJO didn’t respond to the type of dialogue that Tz’ununija’ members were interested in having about gender justice within their organizations. The methodology itself also didn’t consider the global pandemic that Tz’ununija’ members were submerged in at the time, like many other organizations around the world. Each adaptation of the tool became necessary to transform it into something that truly worked for and belonged to Tz’ununija’. The tool and methodology that Tz’ununija’ developed became entirely unique to Tz’ununija’ and its member organizations by the end of the CAT4GJO process.
Prior to rolling out the CAT4GJO, Tz’ununija’ organized a series of healing sessions with leaders from the Indigenous women’s rights organizations to address the heightened stress, care work and violence that women might be facing due to lockdown. Some of these key healing techniques were incorporated into the CAT4GJO process.
Tz’ununija’ and its members carefully selected an image for each concept that allowed participants to follow along in their notebooks and discuss their ideas, regardless of literacy level. When partners ranked their organization’s strengths and weaknesses, they used Mayan numbering and a traffic light system to allow them to better understand where to prioritize further action. Further, their approach Meaning of the term "approach" Maya invocations are spiritual and temporal reckonings carried out by Maya peoples to acknowledge ancestors and nahuales (companion spirits) and count and take stock of time as per the Maya calendar. See https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/15294?lang=en included an exercise that marks the beginning of each workshop to analyze the energy of the day from a Mayan perspective, adapted language and inclusion of self-care techniques throughout the workshops and working with the political council to validate each capacity-strengthening plan to ensure that they are all tied into strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement as a whole. A voting system allowed participants from each organization to vote individually over the phone. The purpose of this vote was to create partner-specific action plans with targeted focus areas.
By the end of the process, not only was baseline data produced, but the women’s rights organizations are implementing capacity-strengthening plans that consider the whole network of Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout Guatemala.
“We are waking up, and our knowledge is getting stronger.”
-Maya Pocomchi’ Women’s Committee member during their Capacity Strengthening Plan design at the end of the CAT4GJO workshop
Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the baseline process, the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement, the local member organizations and staff from Oxfam all agreed that shifting power to the Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout the baseline process allowed the Tz’ununija’ members to have complete ownership over the tools. By adapting them, they were able to produce knowledge that served a higher purpose than just gathering baseline data. Instead, this knowledge is actively contributing to strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement.
The lessons learned below encompass the documented learnings from the entire baseline process, from Tz’ununija’, from the women’s rights organizations and from Oxfam.
The importance of knowledge emerging from a collective process that considers the cultural and linguistic context
All tools and methodologies need to be adapted to facilitate greater understanding and ownership of the data being generated by and for the use of Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
This includes:
- Hiring external teams to support, not lead, and who are able to communicate in the language of each women’s rights organization.
- Producing communication materials, such as newsletters summarizing findings, or much more visual reports using infographics and videos to tell the story, which allows for Oxfam to be more accountable to the communities who are taking part in these processes. In particular, by sharing the results and findings in visually-friendly formats that recognize varying literacy levels, women’s rights organizations can more easily share and discuss the findings within their movements.
- Prioritizing what is important for the Indigenous women’s rights organizations. For example, Mayan invocations being included in all data collecting and sense-making workshops.
This means that Oxfam needed to adopt a flexible approach that respects that Tz’ununija’ does not identify as feminist and, instead, explicitly roots its approach in the lived experiences of Indigenous women in Guatemala. From Oxfam’s perspective, this is still very much aligned with our understanding of a feminist MEAL approach despite the organizations involved not being feminist-identified.
"The different spaces where knowledge is generated allows us to lose our fear to participate. With Tz’ununija’, we’ve gained more knowledge and more energy to participate.”
San Luis Women’s Committee member during CAT4GJO workshop
"So that we all awaken, so that with our voice and our strength we continue to nurture our energy.”
Ketzali Awalb’iitz –Pocomam singer-songwriter during Tz’ununija’s #AquiEstamos5Sep campaign.
Ensure adequate time, support and resourcing for a feminist approach
Despite allowing for more time than would be typically given for a baseline process, even that longer timeline needed to be extended given the project’s many challenges. This allowed for contextualizing, adapting, piloting, transcribing, translating, documenting, analyzing, reviewing and validating project tools and data with the women’s rights organizations. It is important to acknowledge that the ways of working, rhythms and pace of local Indigenous groups differ from those of traditional donor compliance requirements and, thus, may require a shift in approach to reporting deadlines and structures as part of shifting power to the organizations. It is also important to recognize that these constraints were heightened by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and two tropical storms in the rural areas of Guatemala. Health crises and environmental catastrophes are unfortunately not uncommon for women living in poverty in marginalized communities, and it is important to build in time for healing and self-care throughout the process.
“It is important to strengthen not only political capacities but also the technical capacities of Indigenous women so we can create proposals that promote the rights of Indigenous women.”
-Patzún Women’s Network member in self-documented story.
Feminist MEAL Foundations
The process involved in developing the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala baseline report integrated all of Oxfam Canada’s feminist MEAL foundations to varying degrees.
In particular, the baseline study emphasized that feminist MEAL is an approach. The success of this baseline study illustrates that using a feminist MEAL approach does not require labelling MEAL work as “feminist”, especially in contexts where a Canadian understanding of “feminist” may not match well with a locally-held understanding. Instead of emphasizing terminology, this baseline focused on processes that ensured that the following foundations were prominent in this work:
The baseline study was led by Tz’ununija’, who coordinated directly with the participating women’s rights organizations, allowing the entire process to be tailored to the organizations’ needs. This was even more visible during the COVID-19 lockdown protocol period in Guatemala.
The process was co-coordinated by Tz’ununija’, who were the real protagonists in information gathering. The role of the external consultant team focused on documenting the process and drafting the final report.
The baseline study was conducted in the participants’ language whenever possible. In addition, in each virtual and face-to-face activity, a spiritual invocation was performed to incorporate the Indigenous worldviews represented in the Tz’ununija’ movement.
Learn More about Feminist MEAL Foundations
Read about our Feminist MEAL Foundations in more depth in Oxfam Canada’s Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL.
LESSONS LEARNED
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Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala: See How We Did It
Our Methods Explained
Feminist MEAL methodologies challenge traditional ways of gathering information, as well as the typical power dynamics within data collection. In this case, power shifted to the Indigenous women who were part of the member organizations of Tz’ununija’, changing how information was produced and what it was used for.
One of the fundamental tools for determining the project baseline was Oxfam Canada’s Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organizational Strengthening (CAT4GJO), a tool designed to carry out a participatory self-assessment of an organization’s capacities to undertake the work of gender justice. It is a guided tool used to structure a dialogue about current organizational capacities, strengths, weaknesses and gaps. The CAT4GJO tool is structured around six domains Meaning of the term "six domains" The six domains are Women’s Transformative Leadership, Gender-Just Structures and Processes, Organizational Resilience and Sustainability, Strategic Gender Justice Relationships and Linkages, Transformative Gender Justice Programming and Advocacy, and Safeguarding. Learn more here: https://www.oxfam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Oxfam-Canada-Capacity-Assessment-Tool.pdf . These domains are then divided into 22 different capacity areas. Using the CAT4GJO allows organizations to better understand their current capacities under each of these domains, which, in turn, allows them to design action plans for effectively strengthening these capacities. Its premise is the importance of shifting power for project design and implementation to local organizations, in this case to Tz’ununija’ and the local Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
Of 20 Tz’ununija’ member organizations participating in the project, Tz’ununija’ strategically selected five of the organizations based on criteria that would allow Tz’ununija’ itself and the most diversified representation of its members to take part in the CAT4GJO process. The project supported a CAT4GJO process led by and for Tz’ununija’ and the five local Indigenous women’s rights member organizations. Their level of ownership of the CAT4GJO process has shown that the process is just as important as the results.
In its original form, the CAT4GJO didn’t respond to the type of dialogue that Tz’ununija’ members were interested in having about gender justice within their organizations. The methodology itself also didn’t consider the global pandemic that Tz’ununija’ members were submerged in at the time, like many other organizations around the world. Each adaptation of the tool became necessary to transform it into something that truly worked for and belonged to Tz’ununija’. The tool and methodology that Tz’ununija’ developed became entirely unique to Tz’ununija’ and its member organizations by the end of the CAT4GJO process.
Prior to rolling out the CAT4GJO, Tz’ununija’ organized a series of healing sessions with leaders from the Indigenous women’s rights organizations to address the heightened stress, care work and violence that women might be facing due to lockdown. Some of these key healing techniques were incorporated into the CAT4GJO process.
Tz’ununija’ and its members carefully selected an image for each concept that allowed participants to follow along in their notebooks and discuss their ideas, regardless of literacy level. When partners ranked their organization’s strengths and weaknesses, they used Mayan numbering and a traffic light system to allow them to better understand where to prioritize further action. Further, their approach Meaning of the term "approach" Maya invocations are spiritual and temporal reckonings carried out by Maya peoples to acknowledge ancestors and nahuales (companion spirits) and count and take stock of time as per the Maya calendar. See https://journals.openedition.org/jsa/15294?lang=en included an exercise that marks the beginning of each workshop to analyze the energy of the day from a Mayan perspective, adapted language and inclusion of self-care techniques throughout the workshops and working with the political council to validate each capacity-strengthening plan to ensure that they are all tied into strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement as a whole. A voting system allowed participants from each organization to vote individually over the phone. The purpose of this vote was to create partner-specific action plans with targeted focus areas.
By the end of the process, not only was baseline data produced, but the women’s rights organizations are implementing capacity-strengthening plans that consider the whole network of Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout Guatemala.
“We are waking up, and our knowledge is getting stronger.”
-Maya Pocomchi’ Women’s Committee member during their Capacity Strengthening Plan design at the end of the CAT4GJO workshop
Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the baseline process, the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement, the local member organizations and staff from Oxfam all agreed that shifting power to the Indigenous women’s rights organizations throughout the baseline process allowed the Tz’ununija’ members to have complete ownership over the tools. By adapting them, they were able to produce knowledge that served a higher purpose than just gathering baseline data. Instead, this knowledge is actively contributing to strengthening the Tz’ununija’ Indigenous women’s movement.
The lessons learned below encompass the documented learnings from the entire baseline process, from Tz’ununija’, from the women’s rights organizations and from Oxfam.
The importance of knowledge emerging from a collective process that considers the cultural and linguistic context
All tools and methodologies need to be adapted to facilitate greater understanding and ownership of the data being generated by and for the use of Indigenous women’s rights organizations.
This includes:
- Hiring external teams to support, not lead, and who are able to communicate in the language of each women’s rights organization.
- Producing communication materials, such as newsletters summarizing findings, or much more visual reports using infographics and videos to tell the story, which allows for Oxfam to be more accountable to the communities who are taking part in these processes. In particular, by sharing the results and findings in visually-friendly formats that recognize varying literacy levels, women’s rights organizations can more easily share and discuss the findings within their movements.
- Prioritizing what is important for the Indigenous women’s rights organizations. For example, Mayan invocations being included in all data collecting and sense-making workshops.
This means that Oxfam needed to adopt a flexible approach that respects that Tz’ununija’ does not identify as feminist and, instead, explicitly roots its approach in the lived experiences of Indigenous women in Guatemala. From Oxfam’s perspective, this is still very much aligned with our understanding of a feminist MEAL approach despite the organizations involved not being feminist-identified.
"The different spaces where knowledge is generated allows us to lose our fear to participate. With Tz’ununija’, we’ve gained more knowledge and more energy to participate.”
San Luis Women’s Committee member during CAT4GJO workshop
"So that we all awaken, so that with our voice and our strength we continue to nurture our energy.”
Ketzali Awalb’iitz –Pocomam singer-songwriter during Tz’ununija’s #AquiEstamos5Sep campaign.
Ensure adequate time, support and resourcing for a feminist approach
Despite allowing for more time than would be typically given for a baseline process, even that longer timeline needed to be extended given the project’s many challenges. This allowed for contextualizing, adapting, piloting, transcribing, translating, documenting, analyzing, reviewing and validating project tools and data with the women’s rights organizations. It is important to acknowledge that the ways of working, rhythms and pace of local Indigenous groups differ from those of traditional donor compliance requirements and, thus, may require a shift in approach to reporting deadlines and structures as part of shifting power to the organizations. It is also important to recognize that these constraints were heightened by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and two tropical storms in the rural areas of Guatemala. Health crises and environmental catastrophes are unfortunately not uncommon for women living in poverty in marginalized communities, and it is important to build in time for healing and self-care throughout the process.
“It is important to strengthen not only political capacities but also the technical capacities of Indigenous women so we can create proposals that promote the rights of Indigenous women.”
-Patzún Women’s Network member in self-documented story.
Feminist MEAL Foundations
The process involved in developing the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Guatemala baseline report integrated all of Oxfam Canada’s feminist MEAL foundations to varying degrees.
In particular, the baseline study emphasized that feminist MEAL is an approach. The success of this baseline study illustrates that using a feminist MEAL approach does not require labelling MEAL work as “feminist”, especially in contexts where a Canadian understanding of “feminist” may not match well with a locally-held understanding. Instead of emphasizing terminology, this baseline focused on processes that ensured that the following foundations were prominent in this work:
The baseline study was led by Tz’ununija’, who coordinated directly with the participating women’s rights organizations, allowing the entire process to be tailored to the organizations’ needs. This was even more visible during the COVID-19 lockdown protocol period in Guatemala.
The process was co-coordinated by Tz’ununija’, who were the real protagonists in information gathering. The role of the external consultant team focused on documenting the process and drafting the final report.
The baseline study was conducted in the participants’ language whenever possible. In addition, in each virtual and face-to-face activity, a spiritual invocation was performed to incorporate the Indigenous worldviews represented in the Tz’ununija’ movement.
Learn More about Feminist MEAL Foundations
Read about our Feminist MEAL Foundations in more depth in Oxfam Canada’s Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL.
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Progress in Partnership
Our work in SRHR is a result of countless partnerships with determined supporters and local implementation partners around the world. Thank you our partners:
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