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		Happenings Posted October 12, 2005   Updated October 16, 2005 Text © 2005 Copper Country Guatemalan Accompaniment Project (CCGAP) and courtesy Finlandia University. Photo © 2005 NISGUA (Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala) and courtesy Sue Ellen Kingsley.  Reprinted with permission.

Guatemalan to speak of economic, human rights struggles Oct. 16-18

HANCOCK -- Guatemalan Macaria (Miriam) Jocop Guamuch is at the forefront of her country's struggle for economic and human rights. Representing the Alliance for Life and Peace of the Petén, a coalition of social and popular organizations seeking respect for peace and life, Ms. Jocop Guamuch is visiting the Copper Country to speak about the cooperative that she represents and discuss economic alternatives to the CAFTA global trade agreement. She is also a member of the New Horizons Cooperative, a community with fish-farming, agriculture, sustainable forest management and ecotourism projects.

Ms. Jocop will give a public presentation on Sunday, October 16, 2005, following a 5:30 p. m. potluck dinner at the First United Methodist Church in Hancock. On Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 17-18, she will speak with various classes at Finlandia University and Michigan Tech and with several other community groups.

Guatemalan Macaria (Miriam) Jocop Guamuch will speak about her country on Sunday, Oct. 16, following a 5:30 p. m. potluck dinner at the First United Methodist Church in Hancock. On Oct. 17-18, she will speak with classes at Finlandia University and Michigan Tech and with several other community groups.  (Photo © 2005 NISGUA and courtesy Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

Community members are invited to attend the Sunday evening potluck dinner and presentation at First Methodist Church of Hancock, as well as Ms. Jocop's presentations to university classes. She will speak at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, in Room 229 of the EERC Building on the Michigan Tech campus. Please contact Suzanne VanDam at 906-487-7515 for dates and times of the Finlandia classes.

Ms. Jocop is from the Petén, a remote jungle area in the north of Guatemala currently under pressure from oil and forestry development interests. The current "Survivor: Guatemala" TV series was filmed in a nature preserve and archeological park there. In her Copper Country appearances, Ms. Jocop may also address how her people, the current Kaqchikel Maya inhabitants of the Petén, were affected during recent filming of the popular "reality" show. Considering the many social and economic obstacles to survival that Ms. Jocop's people face daily, it might be said that she is coming here to represent the real survivors.*

"Miriam will speak about the effects of the global economy on peasant farmers in Guatemala, giving students an inside look at the cultural as will as economic effects of global trade agreements," said Suzanne VanDam,  Finlandia assistant professor of English. "Students will be exposed to a unique cultural perspective while learning about the ways in which global trade agreements affect all of us in this interconnected economy," VanDam added. "Attendees will also gain a greater understanding of the geography and history of the Petén region of Guatemala, a place with sometimes surprising parallels to the upper peninsula of Michigan in terms of economic self sufficiency and employment."

Community members are invited to attend both the Sunday evening potluck dinner and presentation at First Methodist Church of Hancock, as well as Ms. Jocop's presentations to Finlandia University classes. Please contact Suzanne VanDam at 906-487-7515 for dates and times of the Finlandia classes.

Ms. Jocop's visit to the Copper Country is sponsored by the Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project (CCGAP), with additional funding from the Finlandia University Campus Enrichment Committee.

The CCGAP is a local group that supports accompaniment of human rights activists in Guatemala. Part of its mission is to inform people of the Copper Country about the effects of U.S. policies on Third World countries to the south. It also attempts to strengthen ties between Guatemala and the Copper Country by developing individual relationships and giving financial support to small projects planned by the people in the returned refugee community of Fronterizo.

CCGAP's parent organization, Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA), was formed in 1981 to coordinate local activism on Guatemala in the United States. Twenty-five years later, NISGUA is still one of the strongest and steadiest national voices for responsible U.S. policy in the region.

The Finlandia University Campus Enrichment Committee seeks to enhance the cultural, academic and artistic qualities of campus life. The university fosters intellectual challenge, open dialogue, service to others and an entrepreneurial response to a world characterized by change.

For additional information, please contact Finlandia assistant English professor Suzanne VanDam at 906-487-7515, or Sue Ellen Kingsley, director of CCGAP, at 906-482-6827.

Editor's Notes: * See the Viewpoints article "Artificial Survival," posted on Keweenaw Now Oct. 16, 2005. The author comments on the "Survival" TV show and how it contrasts with the actual survival challenge Guatemalans face every day. The article is reprinted from the recent CCGAP Newsletter, with permission. CCGAP has been supporting accompaniers to live in Guatemala as human rights observers in accordance with the agreements signed by the Guatemalan government in 1992. Hancock resident Sue Ellen Kingsley established the Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project (CCGAP) after serving as an accompanier herself (in 1997) in the Guatemalan village of Fronterizo 10 de Mayo, a community established May 10, 1995, by a group of refugees who returned to Guatemala after 12-15 years in refugee camps in Mexico. This article appeared in part in the September 2005 issue of the CCGAP Newsletter.  CCGAP offers educational talks on Guatemala to groups in the Copper Country and offers the opportunity for involvement in this community-to-community relationship with the Mayan indigenous people of Guatemala. Read about CCGAP's 2004 visitor, Denese "Dominga" Becker, who showed the award-winning PBS film Discovering Dominga, at First United Methodist Church in Hancock. The film documents her life story, including the massacre by the Guatemalan army that killed more than 176 people in her village, Rio Negro. Read about one of CCGAP's accompaniers, Hale Sargent, in his article, "Celebrating Connections." Read Sue Ellen Kingsley's May 15, 2003, article, "Water Pots come to Fronterizo." In November 2001, a family from Fronterizo visited the Copper Country. See "Guatemalan visitors offer Copper Country cultural exchange."

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