Grassroots International partners with the Peasant Unity Committee (CUC), which is engaging in cross-cutting work that addresses these racist, patriarchal, and classist systems of oppression at the root. The organization built its strategic plan on the framework of food sovereignty, defined as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture system.”Food sovereignty addresses food and nutrition needs on one side and the lack of national and municipal public policies on the other. This project promotes agroecological family gardens for the women of Sololá, increasing food sovereignty and women’s organizing and leadership. CUC’s project Promoting Agroecological Family Gardens for the Women of Sololá, Guatemala, centers on vegetable production by and for women, mirroring CUC’s agroecological vision. Men are also included through intense political formation processes. CUC understands growing vegetables on Indigenous territory as political work and incorporates political visioning and training into each project cycle.

Source: umcmission.org