Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K'iche' Guatemalan human rights activist, feminist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting Indigenous rights internationally.
Kʼicheʼ are indigenous peoples of the Americas and are one of the Maya peoples. The Kʼicheʼ language is a Mesoamerican language in the Mayan language family. The highland Kʼicheʼ states in the pre-Columbian era are associated with the ancient Maya civilization, and reached the peak of their power and influence during the Mayan Postclassic period.
The Maya peoples are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical civilization. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. "Maya" is a modern collective term for the peoples of the region, however, the term was not historically used by the indigenous populations themselves. There was no common sense of identity or political unity among the distinct populations, societies and ethnic groups because they each had their own particular traditions, cultures and historical identity.
Guatemalans are people connected to the country of Guatemala. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Guatemalans, several of these connections exist.
David Matthew Stoll is an American cultural anthropologist. His research has focused on the indigenous peoples of modern Latin America, and especially on the Mayas in Guatemala. He has been a professor of anthropology at Middlebury College since 1997.
San Pedro Jocopilas is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché.
Uspantán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. It is one of the largest municipalities of El Quiché and stretches from the mountainous highlands in the South to the tropical lowlands in the North. The municipal seat is in Villa de San Miguel Uspantán with a population of 2,800. The birthplace of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú, a community named Laj Chimel, is located Uspantán not far from the municipal seat. Completion of paving on the road in from Chichicastenango has brought a small tourist boom to the town.
The Man of Peace is an award conceptualized in 1999 by the annual World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome. The purpose of the award is to recognize individuals who "from personalities from the world of culture and entertainment who have stood up for human rights and for the spread of the principles of Peace and Solidarity in the world, made an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace".
General elections were held in Guatemala on 9 September to elect a new President and Vice President of the Republic, 158 congressional deputies, and 332 mayors. As no presidential candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 4 November.
Encuentro por Guatemala ("EG")– a Spanish name variously translated as "Encounter for Guatemala", or as "Together for Guatemala" (Reuters) – was a Guatemalan political party; encuentro may also translate as "gathering", "meeting", or "union".
Founded by Pamela Yates, Peter Kinoy and Paco de Onís in 1981, Skylight is a media organization based in Brooklyn, NY that has been making feature-length documentaries and short digital projects for over 30 years. Skylight is a member of New Day Films.
Winaq is a left-wing political party in Guatemala whose most notable member is Rigoberta Menchú, who is ethnically K'iche'. Its name comes from the K'iche'ean word for "people", "winaq". It is a party whose roots are in the indigenous communities of Guatemala.
When The Mountains Tremble is a 1983 documentary film produced by Skylight Pictures about the war between the Guatemalan Military and the Mayan Indigenous population of Guatemala.
Laj Chimel or Chimel is a community located in the cloud forest of the municipality of San Miguel Uspantán, Department of El Quiché, Guatemala. It is the birthplace of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum. Currently it is only accessible by foot or by four-wheel drive vehicles, as the road through the mountains is unpaved. It is located a short distance north of the municipal capital San Miguel Uspantán, about 45 minutes to an hour in vehicle. The community consists of about 17 families, including some who returned to the area after being displaced during the Guatemalan Civil War.
Dawn Engle is the co-founder and former executive director of the non-profit PeaceJam Foundation.
Centro Educativo Pavarotti is a junior high school for children aged 12–16 located near Lake Atitlán in San Lucas Tolimán, Sololá Departement, Guatemala. The center is an initiative of the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation, which is an institution accredited for its contributions to the defense of human rights especially of indigenous peoples which impels educational programs, citizen participation, community development and combating impunity. The Utzilal Tijonikel program, which translated from Kaqchikel into English means “teaching to do the good thing”, offers also education complemented by a basic work orientation. The center serves approximately 150 Guatemalan children with 10 professors educating them. The majority of children attending this school live in poor circumstances, so that they receive financial support in order to attend this school. Without these benefits they would probably work on fields, like many of their parents do.
Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America is a 2012 feature-length documentary film based on the book Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, written by journalist Juan González. The film was directed by Peter Getzels and Eduardo López, and premiered in New York and Los Angeles on September 28.
Menchu's little yellow bat is a species of vesper bat found in Central America. It was described as a new species in 2012.
PeaceJam is a US-based global youth organization led by Nobel Peace laureates. It was founded by musical artist Ivan Suvanjieff and his wife, the economist Dawn Engle in 1993.
