Schools for Chiapas / Escuelas para Chiapas
- ¡Ya Basta! Just say NO to Trump’s walls of hate!
- We invite you to support walls of hope;
- Help build humble walls supporting Zapatista schools!
Dear Schools for Chiapas friends & supporters,
Yes, we do live in extraordinary times; and yes, we must all contemplate extraordinary actions!
As our Zapatista friends say, there’s a “hole in the ozone layer and a hole in people’s hearts”. Now it’s us up to us – the entire human race – to save our Mother Earth by healing ourselves and the planet with love and intelligence. Yet our dignified rage at the status quo is cheapened and marginalized on every front while the system itself careens toward self-destruction.
Donald Trump is President-elect of the most powerful military and industrial empire the world has ever seen.
Each of us must search our hearts and our minds to imagine how we can best respond to this startling fact; however, we at Schools for Chiapas hope that old fashioned, international solidarity will remain an important part of our collective and individual response to the current, and the soon to worsen, crises.
It’s hard to describe the difference your solidarity makes in the lives of Mayan communities in Chiapas struggling to build a rustic schoolhouse or a new women’s center or a health clinic or an ecological agricultural experiment. By donating whatever funds you can spare or volunteering on a delegation to Chiapas, you open up hope and possibility – you help make change possible. In either case you demonstrate that the Zapatistas are not alone; that our resistances are connected and strong. (www.schoolsforchiapas.org/donate/)
Of course our important work now is to challenge and confront Trump and the empire – to stop the wars, to end the environmental destruction, and to protect our families and our neighbors. But in addition, Schools for Chiapas offers you the opportunity to reach across political borders and economic walls to share human empathy with the excluded…with some of those communities and peoples most abandoned by the current international system.
As a new generation assumes leadership in the Mayan communities of the Zapatista movement, plans are being implemented to improve education, health, sustainable agriculture, and women’s empowerment. However, a lack of funds often slows down (without stopping) these needed advances; that’s where you can make a big difference today.
With your renewed support, in 2017 Schools for Chiapas will fund an ambitious new educational construction program throughout the misty mountains and steamy rainforests of the Mexican southeast. In addition, our core work for autonomous health, resistance to GMO corn, and the planting of Food Forests will be greatly expanded! With your help can do so much.
We will work closely with the autonomous Mayan governments of the Zapatistas to target the most pressing needs and carefully evaluate the most efficient use of resources. Over twenty years of work on the ground in Chiapas, Mexico makes us uniquely able to utilize funds and gather expertise on short notice to meet pressing needs articulated and sought by Zapatista communities.
Zapatista women’s cooperatives make most of the products available in our online store; therefore, your purchases send funds directly into the vitally important Women’s Co-ops and the Mayan families they support. Please visit us online (www.schoolsforchiapas.org/store) to find hundreds of high-quality, Zapatista-produced craft items for gifts during this holiday season.
Despite the impossible situations created by politicians, ordinary people everywhere are trying to figure out how to have peace, save the planet, and protect our families and neighbors. The Zapatista movement remains an important and inspirational example for us all; they deserve our support and solidarity now more-than-ever as we find new ways to make the world a better place.
Yours for kids,
Pedro Café aka Peter Brown, Co-coordinator of Schools for Chiapas
pedrocafe@schoolsforchiapas.org
Ps. Gifts of Change allow you to make donations supporting the Zapatistas in your friends and families’ name – if you like we will email you and that special person an impressive certificate describing your donation-gift. It’s an easy way to spread holiday joy and promote change. Full details here: gifts-of-change/