As the date of the 13th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues quickly approaches, our Guatemalan team is preparing to travel to New York to participate in the event. Cesar Gomez, Tino Recinos, and Rosy Gonzalez have received their visas and are ready to represent the Guatemalan Indigenous Community Radio Movement among Indigenous peers from all over the globe.
Cesar is Indigenous Pocomam from Palin, Esquintla. In 1999, Cesar started as a volunteer at the Palin community radio station where he worked for five years. In 2005 he was selected as a regional representative to the Association of Guatemalan Community Radio Stations. In 2007, he was hired as the office administrator of the National Congress of Community Radios. In 2008, he started working with our team as the Radio Project’s Content, Production and Training Coordinator. This will be Cesar’s fourth time attending the UN Permanent Forum as a Cultural Survival representative.
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Tino is of Mam descent from Huehuetenango, Guatemala. He has been working as our Citizen Participation Coordinator for five years, in addition to being the director of Asociación Mujb’ ab’l yol, a federation of 27 community radio stations in Guatemala that just celebrated its 15th anniversary. Tino has been involved in the community radio movement since his days as a guerilla in the Guatemalan Civil War. He served for 13 years as part of the clandestine radio station operated by the guerrilla on the Tajumulco volcano. When the war ended, Tino helped found Doble Via community radio station in Quetzaltenango; a station which is now mostly run by youth from the town of San Mateo, Quetzaltenango.
Rosy Gonzalez is Kaqchikel Maya from Sumpango Sacatepéquez. She is a radio producer with our Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) Initiative. Rosy is studying communication sciences at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City, and has worked at her local community radio station, Radio Ixchel, for the past four years as an on-air host, human rights promoter, and administrator. This will be Rosy’s first time participating in the UNPFII. She will be representing both the FPIC Initiative, as well as the Community Radio Program at the Forum.
Alongside allies from the Guatemalan Community Radio Movement, this group of longtime community radio leaders will be representing Cultural Survival and the fight to legalize community radio in Guatemala. We are currently organizing various meetings for the team members and will share a full schedule of events as soon as it is finalized.
