Tuik Ruch Lew/Helping the Earth

Organization Description

TRL is a grass-roots, Tzutujil Maya-led, registered nonprofit association, located in Santiago Atitlán on beautiful Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. Established in 2016, TRL currently operates projects that are helping improve the lives of Tz’utujil Maya community members by reducing poverty, improving health outcomes, and protecting local ecosystems.

(1) The Improved Cookstove (ICS) project, which promotes the use of ONIL energy-efficient, clean-burning cookstoves -- positively impacting the health, family economies, gender equality while protecting the forests from excessive fuel-wood cutting.

(2) The distribution of British Berkefeld water filters provides access to safe drinking water and minimize pollution from single-use plastics

3)The construction of a model Fixed-Dome Biogas Digester at a small school in an impoverished aldea, demonstrates an on-site, closed cycle system for black water sanitation, which provides gas for cooking plus organic fertilizers. This virtuous cycle can be scaled to different types of sites, both residential as well as institutional, helping to eliminate fecal pollution of Lake Atitlan-- the source of drinking water for more than 150,000 residents around the lake. The construction of fixed dome biogas digesters utilizes locally-available materials and labor, providing employment opportunities within the community and a permanent, low-maintenance sanitation solution.

All projects include developing trusting relationships with local community members. Each project has an environmental education component, which empowers beneficiaries to understand the environmental challenges threatening Lake Atitlán and how their own participation directly combats climate change.

TRL’s cookstove project, the largest of the three projects, has completed two rigorous external certifications: Validation and Verification under the new Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) and the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). TRL was chosen by Verra, as one of 16 projects globally, to pilot SD VISta -- an international standard designed to assess and report the sustainable development benefits of project activities with benefits for people and the planet. Registration with Verra enables TRL to claim the carbon dioxide emission reductions achieved through the Improved Cook Stove (ICS) project, thus participating in the voluntary carbon market and eventually securing a stable funding stream for the stoves. Our Verified Carbon Units (VCUs) are labeled with Verra's SD Vista's labels, making them more valuable to companies looking to add a social impact to their carbon offsets, putting TRL's VCUs in the "boutique" market for carbon offsets.

TRL operates on a consensus model, taking into account the experience and cultural knowledge of the local staff. We recognize that, in a grass-roots organization, it is vitally important for each person to understand the benefits of any new idea/technology and see its potential to work well in our specific cultural context, so that they can enthusiastically support a new program. Our approach may include bringing in experts and/or visiting existing successful programs. TRL maintains a commitment to the community’s indigenous culture.

TRL works within the framework of an impoverished and semi-illiterate community. Successful partnership with local stakeholders enables TRL to help conserve the ecosystems surrounding the Lake.