The UVOC is a grass-roots movements working to ensure access to land to indigenous and peasant communities of “Las Verapaces” in Guatemala where land evictions have been and still are most severe. It was founded in the late 1980s as part of a wider cooperative movement and got legally recognized as an autonomous entity in late 1990s. It counts with over 200 campesino communities in the departments of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Izabal, and El Quiché.
Mission:
UVOC is an indigenous and peasant organization that gathers indigenous and peasant communities of the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz, Izabal and part of Quiche, so to co-ordinate joint actions to claim the right to land and territory.
Objectives:
Improve the institutional and organizational capacity of UVOC to contribute to the social, political and economic development of rural Guatemala.
Strengthen UVOC’s capacity to advocate, negotiate and propose at local, regional and national level, with a focus on land and agrarian-related conflicts particularly in its main area of intervention –“las Verapaces” region.
Contribute actively and from a peasant and indigenous perspective to proposals that are addressing the need for a comprehensive and genuine agrarian reform.
Activities/Main areas of work:
As the region of Las Verapaces is a mainly indigenous area that presents a very high level of land concentration, with associated enormous land disputes, UVOC is mainly concentrating its work on land access issues.
UVOC, therefore, works principally on access to land for “campesinos/as” in the form of community organizing for land invasion as well as for providing legal support in the process of “legalization” of the communities’ titles to land.
The UVOC also offers training for communities affiliated to the UVOC and supports development projects within those communities.
Coverage:
Guatemala, with a focus on the areas of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Quiche e Izabal
Beneficiaries:
Indigenous and peasant sector
Membership/Affiliations
CNOC
Foro Social de Las Americas
Movimiento Indígena y Campesina MOICAM Economia Solidaria Centroamericana ECOSOL
Alianza Social Continental ASC
