Latin American link in ether as Seán fights for the Maya
ONE of the most impactful presentations at the launch of the Business and Community Alliance last week was that by Seán McGillicuddy. The well-known actor, who has famously appeared in Game of Thrones, spoke movingly about the cause of a people now very close to his heart – the Maya of Guatemala in Central America.
The poorest of the poor of the region, they live in a state of abject poverty, put upon at all turns by the ostensibly democratic Government of the country in which they live and its corporate partners.
But they are not without friends and this little county of ours has provided quite a few through a remarkable charity - Hope Guatemala.
“I got involved through my girlfriend Pia Janning as it was her father Eddy Diekmann who founded the Kerry-based charity Hope Guatemala from his home in Dingle 12 years ago. I was looking for something substantial I could really make a difference with and I realised fairly quickly that Hope Guatemala was going to be it,” Seán told The Kerryman.
Four years later and the Listowel man has a knowledge of the Maya and the brutal reality of the region’s geopolitics second to none. “The first time I visited was a very humbling experience really. You wouldn’t believe the poverty.
“We work in a rural region where the people live in what are just corrugated iron shacks, whole extended families packed into single rooms without sanitation and with black plastic bags for doors and windows.”
Illiterate and plagued by the eternal evils of poverty from violence to malnourishment and disease, this branch of the Maya are possibly doing worse in the 21st Century than their empire-building forebears of the time of Christ. And yet they live in a paradise – one of the world’s richest in terms of biodiversity and mineral resources. “Ironically a big part of the problem is the fact that they live in such a naturally wealthy land.”
“It was only while I was there I got a sense of how we all play an indirect role in it,” said Seán. “For instance, the Maya now have serious problems with accessing water because huge mining companies are siphoning it off for their own use and the big mineral they are mining out there happens to be nickel. It’s used in mobile phone manufacturing. The powers that be want them off the land, with families being burnt out in many cases amid much else.”
The worst abuses against the Maya took place during a period of Guatemalan history known as La Violencia - roughly concomitant with our own ‘ Troubles’ –a Civil War that claimed 200,000 lives. “We actually made a documentary on it, La Violencia: The Untold Truth of Guatemala, focusing on the lives of the women and narrated by Aiden Gillen who also visited the country with the charity.
“We’re focusing a great deal on women’s lives as they have no rights whatsoever in a people who are pretty much uneducated.” This is where the remarkable nature of the Kerry-based charity shines through – in its diverse mission in the country. “We recently launched a programme concentrating on women’s rights and teaching people all about it, and it is already showing signs of taking effect with a greater regard being shown native women.
“Working with our partner agencies in the country, we feed 50 children twice a day at our nutrition centre CERNA, staffed by a doctor, nurse and health worker - all of which is paid for by Hope Guatemala.” They are now in the process of setting up a health centre, strategically placed to serve as many people as possible.
Meanwhile, Listowel is now set to play a part in the Hope Guatemala story. Just last week the young lads of the Boys’ School contributed towards a set of Christmas cards for which Seán was deeply grateful. “And I’m also now hoping to establish a twinning to connect Listowel with Guatemala in a way that would reaffirm how the people of Listowel are concerned about the plight of the bigger global picture.”