By Morgan Zantua
October 17, 2005

Connecting people and helping them create successful futures is what CLC is all about. Through my association with Jeff Frias, President of the Board of Valley View Health Center of Lewis County, I had the opportunity to participate in the Fourth Institute of Peace held in San Cristobel, Totonicopan, Guatemala. My ticket into this extraordinary movement was my experience in Appreciative Inquiry.

During an initial conference call with Jose “Chencho” Alas, Director and Founder of the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America (www.fssca.net) he mentioned he had been using the Methodology for about thirty years. I did the math knowing that David Cooperrider had synthesized and named Appreciative Inquiry, about twenty-five years ago. When I asked Chencho how he could be doing Appreciative Inquiry for as long as he had, I heard a smile in his voice as he said, “David just gave a name to what we were already doing.”

When the Fourth Peace Institute for the Foundation for Self-Sufficiency in Central America got underway, I experienced the results of a man’s life work to bring positive and fundamental change through grassroots organizations.

The first day of the eight-day institute, all the representatives from the four participating countries (Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) shared the progress they were making in their individual countries. The groups had certain commonalities. Each was dealing with the “have-nots” issues of poverty, skills development for youth and women, substance abuse, domestic violence, soft skills training, access to technical training and health care.

Participants didn’t focus on their problems, such as the unregulated use of fertilizers and industrial chemicals polluting their water supplies and food chain or the high rates of cervical and breast cancer plaguing their communities. They focused on what they wanted to increase — their vision of a healthy functional society. They described professionals and volunteers who work side-by-side to teaching organic farming, recycling and proper health care to reclaim the earth and their lives. These folks were about making changes in their world today.

A basic principle of Appreciative Inquiry is to include all voices in the room. Sixty-five percent of Guatemala’s population is indigenous. The second day of the Institute, Victor Chaicoj Vasquer from the Asociacion Movimiento Nacional Uk’u’ux Mayab’ Tinamit (ukux@intelnet.net.gt) presented an overview of the Mayan culture, beliefs, and spirituality. Victor presented the esoteric structure of Mayan culture and how maize was a spiritual icon and revered dietary staple to indigenous people.

On the four-hour bus ride from Guatemala City to the Presbyterian Bible Institute, I was struck by myriads of corn fields caressing the mountainsides like a patchwork quilt. All farming was done by hand. Produce was either carried to a pick-up point on a man’s back or balanced on a woman’s head. Indigenous farmers are poor. They can’t afford tractors. At $3.75 per gallon, they can’t afford gasoline.

We learned about the Mayan calendar (this year is 5026), and we received an overview of Mayan astrology and the spiritual culture that guides their harmonious relationship to Mother Earth.

The next evening, we combined the Dream — the Vision Statement of the Mesoamerican Peace Movement — with a Mayan invocation to allow the energy of the group to become a reality guided by the Mayan spiritual energy.

The following day Chencho introduced the Theology of Peace. There was richness in the Spanish text that didn’t quite carry over into the English version. The stories and examples of this whole systems approach to peaceful change mesmerized everyone. Chencho said, “Ghandi didn’t go far enough when preaching non-violence because he didn’t preach non-violence toward Mother Earth.” If we don’t respect, honor and care for all dimensions of the physical world, we are being violent. A person can go to church every Sunday and believe he or she is being a ‘good’ person. But, if that same person isn’t changing their car oil regularly, they are being ‘violent’ to Mother Earth.

Chencho completed his talk with a description of a Harmonious Community. After lunch, Jeff and I began the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) process. Most participants had been exposed to some level of AI. They wanted a theory base to support the methods they used. We wove theory into the Discovery process as participants interviewed someone from a different country and, in most cases, a different gender. The interview buzz filled the room. We introduced AI concepts for people new to the process. Our design deepened the learning for individuals with AI experience. And we provided a stable theory base for everyone to understand how to use the eight basic AI principles in their daily life.

By the afternoon snack time, everyone was engrossed in the Discovery Phase and sharing the themes they heard during their one-on-one interviews. When we returned thirty minutes later, people used the two hours before dinner to locate the energy of the positive core and develop creative right brain activities (through skits, songs, and poetry) in order to demonstrate the values, qualities and themes they heard during the interviews. After dinner, the seven presentations ignited the energy in the room. The groups worked until 10:30 completing their possibility statements of their Dream of the future.

The following morning, the seven groups presented their statements. We were struck by the strong similarities among all seven propositions and the deep love, respect, and dignity expressed in each statement. Chencho was deeply touched by the energy, emotion and creativity in the room. After the morning break, Jeff and I regrouped the participants to allow them to work with their countrymen. In the Design phase, we felt it was important for each participant to make commitments, requests for help, and offers of assistance to peers from his or her own country.

The fifth day we went deep into the Design phase. To further tap into participants’ skills and designing capabilities, Beatriz Aburto crearpaz@yahoo.es provided a format to move the participants through the nuts and bolts of a design process.

The Design phase in AI challenges peoples’ thinking. Groups vision where they want to be. They can feel it, see it, almost reach out and touch it. Now, they had to design it, and coax it into reality to make it happen. The teams moved into subgroups and wrestled with design. Meanwhile, selected delegates crafted a single Mesoamerican vision statement to be used for the Mayan invocation.

The following day Mario Godinez ceibauno@terra.com.gt from CEIBA a non-profit organization in Chimaltenango, Guatemala explained the development and impending impact the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will have on the poor people within the region. I refer to the potential impact. The final day participants, using the principles of Appreciative Inquiry, the energy and spirit of the Peace Institute discussed how they will mobilize their grassroots response to CAFTA.

We can talk about doing Appreciative Inquiry but, in Guatemala, I saw forty-four global peace makers equipped with dignity, respect, and love for themselves, their families, their neighbors, their global community, and Mother Earth returning home determined to create Peace in all aspects of their lives.