Can we achieve development by ourselves? Is forgetting our culture the only way of escaping poverty? Do we have to remove our embroidered skin by the centuries, our grandparents’ stories, by the corn, by the blood that springs in flowers that dyes our clothing, by the deep blue of the sky and the sea that draws deer and suns in the sleeves of our shirts, change the night that is embroidered in Chuj that protects us from the cold and the rain for a sweater from a factory, do we have to forget being Huipil to be able to achieve happiness?

The Second Indigenous Mexico Encounter, Brotherhood Agreements, took place on the 16^th, 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th of March in the year 2010 in Mexico City. The attendance was of 234 people, 131 men and 133 women from the communities of Hñahñu, Wirárica, Tsetsal, Mazahua, Tsotsil, and Tojolabal.

The Brotherhood Agreements represent the calling of the indigenous communities to the rest of the Mexican society to build a path simultaneously, to drive the improvement of the material conditions of life in indigenous communities, and to help preserve their identity. They base themselves in two main premises:

The development with identity that implies the access of indigenous communities to technology, to business skills, to markets and the training required to their grand creative, entrepreneurial, and solidary potential to help start off different projects of productive, communitarian, and human development that generate a substantial improvement in the levels of material and spiritual well-being.

The development with identity establishes the challenge of opening the indigenous communities to the rest of the society, but it also demands the opening of it to the indigenous world. The establishment of mutually beneficial alliances between indigenous communities and entrepreneurs, the academy, civil society organizations, and the agencies of the government must be based in the mutual process of learning and benefit, with which indigenous people can benefit from entrepreneurial skills as well as technological abilities from other sectors, which can also be enriched throughout the contact with their experience, knowledge, and values.

Conclusion

“We are indigenous people and we demand the full recognition of our dignity and the validity of the values and worldview that define our identity. As members of the indigenous communities of Mexico, for us, material well-being is meaningless if it is not accompanied by the acceptance of our identity. The poverty we are immersed in hurts us, but the exclusion and discrimination which we have been subjected to hurts us even more.”

In this encounter, various exercises were held to identify the needs of each community of the participating leaders. Seven communities from four states participated: Mazahua, Otomíes, and Matlazinca from the State of Mexico, Hñahñu from Hidalgo, Tsetsal from Chiapas, and Wiráricas from Jalisco. The job from the previous two encounters was continued, but this encounter included more space to continue working in the operation model of regional development. The following items were proposed: strengthen and expand the abilities of people in indigenous communities, as well as the achievement of high levels of synergy, articulation, and participation with the government, companies, and civil and academic society. In this last one, an alliance is consolidated with Anahuac University through the Carlos Slim Helú Chair in Integral Combat to the Poverty of Indigenous Communities, who fully open the door of their campus to indigenous communities and allow their leaders to analyze, discuss, and propose ways to consolidate the Operational Model based on the strengthening of their indigenous identity.

The encounter took place on the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th of March in the year 2012. The event was inaugurated at Anahuac University and they were received by the rector, Father Jesus Quirce Andrés, who in his welcome speech mentioned:

“Our University seeks the truth, the communion of not only intelligence but also of hearts. A truth that is the foundation of the rest, we aspire to possess rigorous thinking and the unification of the known truth and the daily life.  We aspire to a dialogue and to the synthesis of knowledge and education, not only wise but also virtuous.”

It was attended by 365 representative men and women from the Mazahua and Otomí community from the State of Mexico, Otomí from Hidalgo, Tseltal from Chiapas, Mayan from Campeche, Wirárika from Nayarit, Tenék from San Luis Potosi, Triqui from Oaxaca, and Purépecha from Michoacán.

“Without participation and organization there is no development, this is why we claim that we do not want support with a helpful look, we want to be the authors of our own transformation, we want to take back the wisdom of our ancestors to build a better Mexico by improving the way of life in our communities, for our children and our grandchildren. We want to build alliances with all the sectors of society: government, universities, civil society organizations, companies, and international organizations, always taking into account our knowledge, our voices, our vision, our priorities, our proposals.”

In this encounter an Agenda was developed from the indigenous communities that participated in the event. In it, actions are proposed to take place inside of the Dimensions of the Development Model.

Physical Environmental Dimension:

• Promote an Ecological Culture and a community organization to protect our territory
• Make technical innovations to take advantage of rainwater
• Reforestation campaigns
• Community clean-up campaigns

Economic Productive Dimension:

• Create a cooperative culture and develop productive projects
• Improve product quality
• Encourage Sustainable Backyard projects
• Diversify production

Social & Human Dimension:

• Have bilingual teachers and schools that are closer to the communities
• Creation of ecological housing that is adapted to the various regions
• Food safety projects, create a culture of natural and organic foods

Cultural Civic Dimension:

• Make the stories of indigenous communities known
• Create a culture of practicing values as parents to teach them to our children
• Rescue our native tongue, providing courses on it
• Create a culture to dress with our traditional costumes
• Start respecting our elders and teaching respect to our children

All of us: pebble, tree, shark, maguey, granite, laughter, wind, moon, ant, tezontle, crystal, eagle, lava, rain, marble, cloud, ocean, flower, vine, river, shrub, cold, water, thorn, sand, iguana, cocoon, night, hummingbird, solitude, fire, root, fish, we find ourselves in the path and share the origin, we build the earth…

In this Fifth Encounter held on the 29^th, 30^th, 31^st of October of the year 2014, leaders from the Mazahua, Otomí, Mayan, Triqui, Tsetsal, Náhuatl, Wirárika, Chinantec, Purépecha and Tenék communities, national and international companies, private foundations, civil society organizations, representatives of the federal government and the State of Mexico, various faculties and schools from Anahuac University were gathered to exchange the experiences they have had in the field of sustainable development of communities, their different models of interaction, their achievements, and results.

Three days of intense managed to unravel and place each thread in the loom, weave the Huipil with threads of different colors and textures.

A dialogue took place about how communities see themselves, the work achieved in each of them and what they have in common, they shared their different structures of traditional government. The Foundations and civil society organizations presented the work they had been doing in the different indigenous communities and the leaders reviewed what they could take back to fully take advantage of their development. There was talk of traditional medicine and that the Faculty of Health Sciences of Anahuac University has established a course of traditional medicine in the major of surgeon on alternative medicines.

There was also talk about tourism, migration, government programs that strengthen the identity and finance productive activities.

After this encounter, two events of experience exchange took place in Chiapas and the State of Mexico, where participants toured the projects implemented by the Patronage Pro Zona Mazahua in the regions. Leaders of the indigenous communities could see the work in greenhouses, how cisterns are built, the chicken coops, the greenhouses of income generation, their houses, and how they came to have all that. They shared work experiences, difficulties and learnings, their achievements, and they identified that their work coincides in every region , that it remains, that it is constant.