Red Wind Councils

Red Wind Purpose Red Wind Way Red Wind Action Red Wind Culture Red Wind Support Red Wind Councils P.O. Box 15 Maynard, MA 01754-0015 pathways@redwindcouncils.org Board of Directors Honorary Board of Directors	Red Wind Way
	Growing a Better World A healthy society is not an unrealizable Utopia, but the only real ideal we should all have. It is indispensable to nourish practical ideals, at whatever level, to bring forth tangible objectives for the good of all & to achieve greater planetary balance. OUR WORK: Modeling Democracy There is a chain of aspects relating to the poverty & cultural devastation of the Maya people who have been marginalized & impoverished for centuries. Yet their legacy is one of the most profound & advanced civilizations ever to exist. So Red Wind Councils works at all levels in assisting Maya communities, as the work is not about solving only one problem. Red Wind Councils seeks to provide support at many levels in order to foster hope for a better future for the children. For over 500 years, it has been too painful for most Maya natives to dream of a better future for fear of being disillusioned once again. Red Wind Councils creates opportunities for the people to express themselves & bring life to the dreams that have been so often frustrated. We share the common desire to seek peaceful ways of changing an oppressed mind-set born of more than 500 years of repression & which has instilled deep feelings of inferiority & lethargy. Our focus with these groups on creating sustainable projects encourages greater self-confidence & the experience of unity. Our work consists of creating islands of sanity in the midst of this extreme oppression. We seek to ally with the indigenous to revive their cultural ways before they are lost, through education & productive social & ecological projects. The principal aim of Red Wind Councils is to provide a dream for these families, to give them seeds of hope for a better awakening & a future in a more just society. We believe in the inherent strength of the people. Therefore Red Wind Councils funds are used for the aid of the Maya people in Chiapas in a multitude of ways - to support weaving, embroidery, bread-making & sewing cooperatives, to help build water systems & provide solar power, to repair broken trucks for farming, to provide corn milling equipment, to build greenhouses & promote organic farming practices, to provide pigs, chickens, cattle, turkeys & sheep to the various communities, & to build schools & help fund hygiene & illness prevention activities that support the care of sick people. Red Wind Councils supports these & other projects related to the health & well being of the Maya people. Renewed Dignity for Rural Communities Red Wind Councils does not impose projects on the communities, but consults with each community & obtains consensus on the projects that the community needs. Red Wind Councils provides advice, ideas & funds, & the people are empowered to do the rest. We have advisors in Mexico who help provide guidance & support when needed, while volunteers from the U.S. travel to Chiapas to observe the collaborative process & give assistance where it is needed. Red Wind Councils is entirely staffed by volunteers who travel at their own expense, as every penny spent is carefully considered & so important to the people & the success of each project. Red Wind's democratic process of working together is based on the ancient native Council ways that underlie some of the oldest & most stable governments created. These inclusive Council ways arise from a Medicine Wheel way of life familiar to indigenous people throughout the world that reconnects us with each other & the earth. Many of the indigenous people in Mexico have lost all hope to the point where they can only maintain the most meager of existences. The communities that Red Wind Councils works with are all populated by impoverished indigenous Maya who have demonstrated a desire to improve the conditions of their lives & have shown that they can maintain a project to fruition. Red Wind Councils seeks to work with communities that are organized & that wish to put in the effort to bring the work of projects forward so that they can become self-sustaining. There are currently seven communities in different areas of Chiapas representing 200 families in each community that Red Wind Councils provides assistance to. We are always looking for more communities to work with that are ready to take the necessary steps to rise from poverty. Each new community that we partner with is given the support to implement a first project, which if successful, leads to further projects with Red Wind. This creates hope for a better future that fuels further initiatives, creating a more positive cycle. A COMMUNITY MODEL: Supporting the People's Dreams The Water of Life: Carrying Hope to Families In various communities with which Red Wind Councils works, we initially find they have lost almost all hope, have little knowledge of their rich traditions & their ancient culture, & have stopped making crafts because the necessities of gathering meager food, water & firewood take all of their time. Funding support emerges in response to each community's most pressing needs & requests, & invariably is used very responsibly & capably by them. The community then decides whether to reinvest any project profits into the initial project or to begin something new. As Red Wind Councils helps fund development to stabilize these communities, we see their cultural devastation halted & a renewed pride in their history & traditions. Some of the most successful projects, among others, with these Maya communities are: building a schoolhouse & providing basic educational supplies so the children are now learning to read & write, thus stopping the cycle of illiteracy, providing funds to build a cistern to end decades of the women hauling water from a distant well, building a small roadside community store where the sale of staples has created an emergency health fund for the community buying a corn mill for the women in the community to use, freeing them from long hours of grinding corn

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		Red Wind Councils PO Box 15 Maynard, MA 01754 pathways@redwindcouncils.org Tax ID#: 20-3633955 Board of Directors Honorary Board of Directors

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