Kula Karma Series: Ruk'u'x Ulew Cacao Fundraiser
By: Ryan Keating
I have just visited San Marcos La Laguna, a small town on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. While doing my yoga teacher training with the Kula Collective, one of our activities was to participate in a "Karma" day where we offer support through selfless service to the community. During this, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the local Mayan women at their women's collective who make a living from processing cacao.
Ruk'u'x Ulew (Heart of the Earth) is a women´s collective who began a small cacao business selling their product locally. Their product has now become well known and they are processing shipments internationally. They source organic beans from an indigenous farm in Coban, Alta Verapaz and bring them to San Marcos la Laguna, which is where I jumped in and joined them cracking cacao seeds. The women spend many hours a day processing the seeds by hand. When I asked what would help them, they told me a mill would bring many positive benefits, enabling them to employ more women from the community and fill more order
All the profits from their cacao go back to the families of the women who are part of the collective and support the local community.
My experience meeting these women was incredibly motivating … which is why I am asking you to join me in supporting the collective through an initiative that empowers the local population and helps create lovingly-energetic and sustainable communities.
Coming into contact with such an admirable group of women has been such a honour and has been an extremely meaningful experience. I feel it is in my life purpose to give my time to such a cause. With the building of a cacao mill, the women would be in an outstanding position to continue to grow and empower their own population and improve the standards of living in San Marcos.
I invite you to join me in making this mill a reality, even if it's only $5-10, and providing wonderful energy to a place which will maximize those resources and transform it into an ideal scenario of positive community investment.
You can find out more about Ruk'u'x Ulew from their Facebook page!
About Ryan:
Ryan Keating is a writer and teacher who runs a wellness practice called Keating Bodyworks, which encompasses physical and emotional well-being and other healing techniques that empower people and their communities. He spends most of his time in the U.S. in Utah and California and currently spends a lot of time traveling and learning in Latin America. He is committed to embracing 'beginners mind' in being a lifetime student and feels enthusiastically purposeful sharing and teaching to others what he has found most healthy, beneficial, enjoyable, and authentic in life.