Giving Compass' Take:

• UN Women report on the Indigenous women of Guatemala’s Polochic valley, who are caring for their families and growing independent businesses with the help of a joint international program.

• How can we do more to empower women in rural areas around the world? This piece shows that economic freedom also leads to more gender equality within the community.

• Women leaders are on the rise in places you might not expect.

The women of Puente Viejo, a small indigenous community across the Polochic and Malazas rivers in the Polochic valley of Guatemala are happy. For once, they have plenty of crops to feed themselves and their families, and they have saved more money than ever before from their organic shampoo sales.

There are no paved roads that go to Puente Viejo. The mostly agrarian indigenous community relies on wooden canoes to transport their products or to access services. The women are part of a joint program by UN Women, World Food Program (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which is empowering more than 1,600 rural women to become economically self-reliant across the department of Alta Varapaz and the municipalities of Tucurú, La Tinta and Panzos.

“I joined this group because I saw the need in my household,” says 55-year-old Candelaria Pec. “With the assistance of the project, we have started growing crops, improved our living conditions.”

The program has also shifted attitudes of male family members. “At home, women used to do all the domestic work, and we were exhausted of having to do all the work by ourselves. But now we have divided the chores at home. Men and women work equally now. The men go to fetch wood, clean the crops, and we cook and prepare food, but also grow vegetables and make shampoo,” added Pec.

Read the full article about empowering women in rural Guatemala at UN Women.