Guatemala


PROJECTS
SERVED DIRECTLY
A message from
About
A thousand years ago, the Maya civilization dominated Guatemala, and today more than half of the Guatemalan population of 14,373,000 people are direct ancestors of the Maya people. Most of these indigenous Maya people live in the western highlands and make a living through subsistence farming, while urban areas are dominated by ‘Ladinos’ people of mostly mixed Maya-Spanish descent.
Historically, urbanized Ladinos have dominated commerce, government and the military, with the Maya people remaining overwhelmingly poor. Throughout Guatemala’s modern history, this ethnic inequality has caused a large amount of conflict, most notably, a 36-year-long civil war between the Ladino government and Maya guerillas, beginning in 1960 and ending in 1996.