People
Guatemalans Helping Guatemalans
Each year Cultiva hosts many humanitarian groups in Guatemala who help us install garden boxes and do other important projects to move our work forward. But you don’t eradicate poverty or change the life of a family by swooping in today and disappearing tomorrow. The core work of Cultiva is done day in and day out by local Guatemalans. These are the people who are in the field every day — teaching classes and mentoring families who are going through our programs.
Meet our team! Click on any of the photos below to learn more about each person.
Juan Cosigua
Juan Cosigua is our Director of Operations. He is from Panajachel, and is in charge of training our beneficiaries, coordinating and supervising everything Cultiva does in the field. Juan speaks four Mayan languages and Spanish. He is Cutiva’s first employee and an essential part of our team.
MJ Pereira
MJ keeps Cultiva running. From making sure we abide by all the rules for NGO in Guatemala, to logistical details for groups, Cultiva wouldn’t keep working if MJ were gone.
Juana Cumes
Juana Cumes is originally from San José Chacayá and she is our amazing Operations and Administrative Assistant. Juanita speaks five languages including English, she assists Juan and MJ with all the work from both Operations and Administrative. Juanita is also a mom and an amazing support to Cultiva, she actually started as one of our beneficiaries and through all the visits, we recognized her amazing talent.
Juan Pablo
Juan Pablo is part of the operations team, he is from San José Chacayá, an agriculturist and he is in charge of assisting Juan Cosigua with training, doing all the lifting of materials, cultivating the starts and generally assisting in the field.
Mary Sacquic
Mary Sacquic was born in Santa Lucía and she is our newest staff member. She used to work for the municipality of Santa Lucía and now she is putting all her experience into the Cultiva work. She has many years of experience working with women in the field.
Juan Molina
Juan Molina is the other gardener we have. He is also the oldest member of our team. As Cultiva, we take pride in hiring people based on their skills, and he really is amazing taking care of our garden boxes.
Manuel González
Manuel González is originally from Chichicastenango, he is one of the two gardeners who is in charge of taking care of Casa Cultiva’s garden as well as the many garden boxes that we have as a sample in Panajachel. Thanks to him and Juan Molina (the other gardener) we manage to produce many vegetables that we use preparing meals for our Volunteers.
Ana Guit
Ana Guit is the other housekeeper. She is from San José Chacayá and she travels every day to Panajachel in order to assist Lucy with everything related to Casa Cultiva, cooking and maintenance. She is super smart and we have seen her learn many things very fast.
Rosa Pocop
Rosa Pocop is one of Casa Cultiva’s housekeepers. She is from Panajachel and does an amazing job assisting our co-founder Lucy with the organization and general maintenance of Casa Cultiva, which is the place where we receive our volunteers. Also, Rosita is very skillful making beautiful crafts, such as the pens we give our Volunteers as a present.
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