Indigenous women illuminate Guatemalan communities
Women of the Guatemalan highlands are training as solar energy technicians, breaking down barriers of machismo, illiteracy and poverty
By Lucy Calderón Pineda (Dialogue Earth)
When Catarina Santiago, a 45-year-old Indigenous Ixil woman, was selected to take part in training on solar energy in India, she was afraid. Over four months, she was going to learn to assemble a complete solar energy system, piece by piece. The course would take place in Rajasthan at Barefoot College International, an organisation that trains women to become solar energy technicians.
Santiago, a well-known community figure, was selected because of her leadership skills. But she had never left Guatemala, spoke no English, barely any Spanish, and couldn’t read or write. Still, she decided to go for it, leaving her children for six months and travelling to Rajasthan with a Spanish-speaking Indigenous woman. She soon discovered she didn’t need written words: she learned through drawings, signs, and visual examples.
When she returned to P’al, her village in the municipality of Chajul, in north-western Guatemala’s Quiché department, Santiago took charge of installing solar systems in her neighbours’ homes. The systems had been donated by the organisation that trained her. She installed a solar panel outside her house, and connected one of the lights it powers to the room where her sister-in-law weaves traditional clothing – previously by candlelight – and another to the brick stove she shares with her sister.
Magdalena Ví Ramírez, 22, received a solar energy system and asked Santiago to use one of the solar lights to illuminate her one-bedroom home, and another to illuminate her small shop. This allowed her to better care for her two children and more efficiently serve her customers.
Barefoot College: bringing light to those who need it most
Barefoot College International was founded in 1972 by Indian educator and social activist Sanjit “Bunker” Roy. The idea was to provide educational opportunities to women in remote rural areas. The initiative grew, and women from other countries were subsequently invited to train in India. In 2022, seven years after Santiago’s trip to India, Barefoot College opened a training centre – its first and so far only branch in Latin America. The centre’s director, Bárbara Pérez, says the Central American country was selected due to the serious needs of its remote Indigenous communities. Pérez said that getting electricity into homes is vital for communities’ development, specifically in the Ixil region, which includes San Gaspar Chajul, Santa María Nebaj, and San Juan Cotzal municipalities in Quiché.
With the opening of the centre, Guatemalan women of various ages, marital statuses and literacy levels, chosen by their community leaders, no longer have to travel to India to become solar technicians. The 10-12 women selected annually train at the centre for 10 weeks. They learn about renewable energy, agroecology, and sustainable business – essential training for them to later install the panels in their own communities.
The World Food Programme (WFP) helps with identifying potential trainees from the communities it has previously prioritised for care, where electricity is lacking. It also assists with importing the solar equipment manufactured in India and transporting it to the villages.
With support from several international organisations such as WFP, the Puma Energy Foundation, Turner & Townsend, and Mite, 34 women have so far been trained in Guatemala, and 475 solar energy systems have been installed. In the coming months, the 2025 cohort is expected to install a further 350.
One of the most unexpected and striking testimonies Pérez received, when asking some of the women how their lives have changed with solar energy at home, was from one who said she can now use the outdoor latrine at night thanks to the portable solar lamps they learned to assemble. “Now that I no longer have to hold back the urge to go to the bathroom at night, I no longer get sick [from urinary tract infections],” she told Pérez.
The difficulties of the area and a lack of electricity
In Chajul, home to the training centre, the majority of its nearly 47,000 inhabitants are Ixil Maya. Many survive or make a living from crops such as beans and corn, livestock production, crafts and textiles. Around 90% live in poverty, according to data from the 2023 National Survey of Living Conditions and official poverty maps. The Ixil Maya people were also victims of a genocide during the 36-year civil war, leaving deep traumas that still exist today.
Electricity coverage in Quiché department is 83%, and in Chajul municipality it is between 80 and 90%. However, in the municipalities of Nebaj and Cotzal, “the coverage rate is critical, below 80%”, according to the energy ministry’s 2023 National Electricity Coverage Index.
A lack of power affects people’s “living conditions, health, education, and safety”, the report states. Barriers to electricity reaching communities include the topography of towns, high costs of expanding the network, and the poverty that prevents people from paying for the service, it adds.
Members of the Community Council for Urban and Rural Development of P’al, where Catarina Santiago lives, say that when night falls, those who lack electricity may light a candle or lantern to finish their chores. Others will simply go to sleep, waiting for the first rays of sunlight to help them complete or begin tasks that are impossible in the dark. Sebastián Brito, P’al’s assistant mayor, and Felipe López and Sebastián Chel, president and secretary of the council, say more solar energy systems need to be installed in the community, where “several young people have married and started new homes that also need electricity”.
Hands on: women become solar technicians
In a room lit by an emergency generator – the power was down on the day Dialogue Earth visited the training centre in Batzul – 12 Mayan women sit around a rectangular table. They are members of the 2025 cohort of the solar programme, completing their final task: assembling a portable solar lamp. In front of them are loose parts and an instruction manual with numbered images.
Without looking at the blackboards which decorate the classroom with posters of energy, voltage, current data, and formulas, they concentrate. They secure screws firmly and connect circuits skilfully. Despite speaking different Mayan languages, they understand each other without difficulty, and help each other without hesitation. Their Spanish is limited, but the collaboration is nonetheless fluid. Two teachers – former students of the same programme – support them silently.
Women in Guatemala continue to face discrimination, poverty and a lack of opportunities. Mayan and Indigenous women are particularly disadvantaged. They have less access to the formal education system and an illiteracy rate of over 60%, according to a 2021 study.
Internationally, Barefoot College exclusively trains women – particularly those from Indigenous communities, who represent 13.5% of the population in Guatemala – to combat this severe gender gap. In its solar programme, students not only learn about clean energy and how to build solar systems, but also strengthen their self-esteem and awareness of their rights and capabilities. They do this through Enrich, a programme offered alongside the technical course that covers entrepreneurship skills, financial education, health and well-being, social equity, and technological literacy.
“Indigenous women leaving their communities is frowned upon by their families and neighbours, even when the reason [why] is explained to them,” explains Ixmukané Caba, an Ixil agroforestry engineer who leads the programme and works as a field technician at the Guatemala office. “There is still a lot of machismo in Guatemala, and their self-esteem needs to be strengthened so they can defend themselves.” Today, electricity remains scarce, but the women’s energy is abundant. On the last day of the course, a few of the women hold up their lit lamps and share what this training experience far from home has meant to them.
“I’m happy because I learned about solar energy, because I met and shared with other women, and because when I return to my village, Palop Chiquito, several of my neighbours will have solar light. I’ll light up my bedroom and my kitchen,” says Juana Brito, 33, who only speaks Ixil. “I’m happy because thanks to what I’ve learned, I’ll be able to return and better serve my people,” adds Petrona Caba, 23, from the village of Santa Clara.
Meanwhile, Carolina Galicia, 24, a former student from the first cohort of Barefoot College Guatemala’s programme, expresses her gratitude at being hired as a teacher this year. “I only studied up to sixth grade; I didn’t even know how to hold a screw,” she says. “But thank God everything went well, and I was able to share with the participants everything I learned here.”
Along with Brito and Caba, 10 other women from the Ixil, Awakateco, and K’iche’ communities in the departments of Quiché and Huehuetenango received their certificate of achievement as solar technicians. From now on, they will be responsible for providing light to their families and communities.
But Barefoot College Guatemala faces significant challenges in securing funding to continue providing these vital programmes, and must continue establishing partnerships with institutions and organisations, both private and governmental, at both local and international levels. It’s not just to cover the running costs of the project itself; the team must also collect and transport the solar energy systems donated to the communities, along with the toolkits the students use to assemble and repair them.
“We’re currently conducting one annual training session, but we’d like to have three, with 16 students per cohort,” Pérez says.