Othón Cuevas Córdova

When native Mexican farmers can no longer make a living off the land, their children migrate to the cities in search of better lives, leaving behind all their culture and traditions. Othón Cuevas Córdova set up rural schools to educate children not only about the rich culture that they’re abandoning, but also about how to make a decent living in rural areas where farming is no longer viable.

In Oaxaca, Mexico, Othón Cuevas Córdova is working with youth to break the vicious cycle of poverty and migration so pervasive in Mesoamerica’s indigenous communities. Many young people today have no appreciation for the traditions or hard-working ethic of their farming ancestors, and would rather leave to seek the good life in the cities. Othón has created a model rooted in the indigenous ethic that teaches young people to understand their cultural roots. At the same time, recognizing that economic reasons also play a part in this mass exodus, he also teaches them how to make a decent living on the farm. He teaches them how to meet their immediate needs as well as plan long term for the future, and gives them the power and confidence to set out on their lives’ paths. Othón believes that if young people have an emotional and ideological bond to the community it will help stem the tide of migration that threatens to turn indigenous communities into ghost towns.

According to recent figures collected by the federal government, over 50 percent of Mexicans live below the poverty line. Poverty is especially acute among Mexico’s indigenous peoples, who make up at least 10 percent of the population. Today, young people living in these impoverished communities must either migrate to the cities in the hopes of finding better opportunities elsewhere or remain in the countryside and face almost certain poverty.

Over the last 20 years, it has become harder and harder for Mexican farmers to survive. Maize and bean cultivation has formed the backbone of the Mexican agrarian economy since pre-Hispanic times, but recent government policy changes, including NAFTA and the accompanying trade liberalization, effectively destroyed their ability to make a living off the land. The rural poor lost their livelihood and rural economics stagnated, leaving few job opportunities. The government has promised farmers technical assistance and income generation projects, but has so far failed to follow through. With no prospects at home, farmers’ children are abandoning their country homes to seek their fortunes in the cities.

In addition to the end of maize and bean agriculture, the gradual loss of indigenous culture is another reason why young people are eager to leave the rural life behind. Young people are increasingly overwhelmed by images from the Mexican and foreign media, glorifying the accumulation of material possessions. The simple life offered by farming becomes less and less attractive to children raised on a steady diet of consumer culture, and young people are easily lured away. Worse, because young people are distracted by visions of the glamorous life, they often ignore their parents’ attempts to teach them the traditional ways of their culture. When the traditional parent-to-child method of transferring cultural knowledge breaks down, no alternative forums exist for passing on indigenous values. As a result, children come to see moving to the city as the only alternative. As they leave, the traditional way of life of their people is slowly dying.

Decisions that people make in their teens and mid-twenties have an enormous impact on the direction their lives will take. In Oaxaca, as well as in much of rural Latin America, this is the age where a person must choose whether to settle into the local agrarian economy or strike off to take up residence in the cities. When teens don’t receive the necessary knowledge about country living from their parents, they turn to Othón’s program to teach it to them. Othón’s four-part program teaches young people the skills and values that they need to succeed at a life in the countryside. The program focuses on developing four specific attributes: the “head,” the “hands,” the “body,” and the “feet.” For the “head,” Othón shows young people how their native culture helps them to know themselves, and encourages them to value their unique way of life more than the temptations offered by the city. For the “hands,” he teaches the skills necessary to support oneself over the long term in a rural area where farming is no longer viable—skills like computing, plumbing, electrical engineering, or even goldsmithing. Meanwhile, the “body” section stresses the ability to meet one’s immediate needs. The “feet” section organizes kids to hone their collective leadership abilities, thus cultivating their self-reliance and sense of purpose.

Othón’s model also relies on financial and technical support from a consortium of CSOs, government representatives, local businessmen, and academic institutions, called Cynergia, as well as a network of youth organizations tied together on local, regional, and national levels. Working together, these groups work to fund Othón’s four-part model as well as providing teachers and educational resources.

Looking at Cynergia, one can understand how these diverse elements fit together. Cynergia includes representatives from the local and state governments that together help secure significant sources of funding. For example, Cynergia once used a tip that the World Bank was ready to commit US$350,000 to any nonprofit organization that had matching funding available through its government to pressure the Oaxacan government to commit funds.

Currently, five CSOs form the core of Cynergia: La Union de Comunidades Juarez de Oaxaca, an association focused on community development; Centéotle, a group working toward sustainable agricultural development and marketing; Compars, a community theatre organization; Acceso Libre, a charity working with disabled youth; and the Centro Guadaluano de Formación de Líderes Juveniles, a group focused on promoting youth leadership. Each organization helps develop youth abilities in its own area of expertise. In addition, two academic institutions are also involved in Cynergia, the Universidad Autonoma de Chapingo, the premiere Mexican university for careers relating to rural development, and the Dirección General de Educación Technologica y Agropecuaria, a government run program with dozens of centers providing training for agricultural development.

All these organizations contribute to fulfilling the “hand” and “stomach” aspects of Othón’s plan. Both academic institutions and the state government provide technical services and training on agriculturally-related income generation projects, while the Unión de Comunidades Juarez de Oaxaca and Centéotle play similar roles. They concentrate on training teens and young people in fields that are either in high demand or have stable earning potential, like computing, plumbing, electrical engineering, or goldsmithing. Other workshops teach job-hunting skills or dispense advice on how to create a successful micro-enterprise.

Othón is currently working to adapt his model for work in other areas of Mexico. His success in Oaxaca suggests that his model may help break the cycle of poverty and migration throughout the country. Recently, Othón forged a relationship with a social scientist from Universidad Autonoma de Chapingo who agreed to help develop criteria to measure the impact of this project on the youth of Oaxaca. When Othón has hard “evidence” of his success, he believes that more people will come to see the benefits of his model.

Othón Cuevas Córdova was born to a family with eight children in Zimitlan in rural Oaxaca. Othón’s grandfather was the last living member of the community to speak the native language of Zapotec, but the people of Zimitlán are still fiercely proud of their Zapotec heritage.

Othón’s father and elder brother both went to work in the United States when he was 12 years old, forcing Othón to choose between going to work to support his family or continuing his studies in Oaxaca City 36 kilometers away. Feeling that he had abandoned his community for an education, he promised himself that he would someday use his education to benefit that community in any way possible. During his teen years, Othón encountered a local priest preaching liberation theology and was immediately drawn to the philosophy. He soon became the leader of a Zimatlán youth group dedicated to liberation theology. Later, when studying in Oaxaca City, he became network leader for all the youth groups in the diocese of Oaxaca. He eventually went to study at the religious seminary of Puebla, but was not able to finish his degree when political authorities, angry that many of the school’s graduates went on to become leaders in the progressive movement, closed the school.

Othón then founded Centéotle (the Nahuatle God of Maize), a citizen organization to help build up his community. In its early years, Centéotle founded a library, purchased food in bulk for impoverished locals, began an ecology school for children, and created a communal planting program for men. Othón also worked to integrate amaranth into the cultivation practices of nearby communities as both a nutritional food source for the family and as a viable economic product for the market. The organization purchased amaranth from local producers, processed it in a factory, and marketed the end products.