Our 2021-2024 program confronts the painful effects of the pandemic on PSYDEH’s work and with Indigenous women and their communities. One of the program’s objectives is to provide direct, personal support to these women and their areas on a more consistent basis. The new PSYDEH field office we call Casa Siempre Viva (CSV) is designed with this goal in mind.
Casa Siempre Viva
What is CSV?
This rented casa-oficina (house-office) is a first for PSYDEH, strategically located within a two-hour drive from all four of the municipalities in which we work. We hope to make it a safe work-and temporary-living space, free of political party influence. Our casa name is that which Indigenous women choose for their regional collective, “Siempre Viva (no me olvides),” and will include:
- One large salon with desks, chairs, one large blackboard
- Desktop computer and wireless internet and phone signal
- Dormitory with two beds (with the possibility of up to two bedrooms)
- Kitchen with basic utensils
- Shower with hot water
- Adequate paper and office supplies
- Murals painted by the local community, women partners, and PSYDEH staff
Why CSV now?
CSV is a long-missing piece to our field presence, needed more than ever during this pandemic period. It decreases transportation costs (money and time) and increases in-Region presence by offering our staff, including our new Indigenous Women Field Corps, and local women a dignified space to receive direct, consistent, and personal human contact and professional support despite confronting climate change effects like raging rainstorms that limit local movement. It is built per indigenous women’s demand for a more visible commitment by PSYDEH to their wellbeing. It enables women and PSYDEH to see ourselves and to be seen by others as leaders with the resources needed to solve problems.
More on PSYDEH’s 2021-2024 Program
We know of no other network of Indigenous women-led collectives working with civil society to grow self-reliance in Mexico. Our program focuses on providing the tools women can use to produce their own rights-oriented solutions to their own social and economic problems during and after this crises pandemic period, with ideas discussed in their own unprecedented regional forums and codified in their own unprecedented development agenda.