It began as a dream, fueled by the indomitable will and energy of a group of young campesinos, led by Father Guillermo Dávalos (Padre Memo) in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.
They took on the greatest challenges that face humankind: poverty, ignorance and injustice. They created a place called CEDESA, the Center for Agricultural Development, where they lived and worked and brought others to share experiences, teach and learn. They planted crops and trees in the dry scrub-land, and ideas in fertile minds– about dignity, development and autonomy.
Among the many who contributed to this effort, the three “muchachas” as they were affectionately known in the communities where they worked – Lucha Rivera, Tere and Chela Martínez – decided to dedicate their lives to CEDESA.
In 2006, Lucha died of kidney failure, leaving Tere and Chela to carry on the work of CEDESA. A week ago on April 17, Tere died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage, leaving her younger sister Chela, the fourth pillar of CEDESA, standing alone – but not entirely.
At an emotional meeting a few days after Tere’s death, the CEDESA team of outreach workers, consultants and directors reaffirmed their commitment to the dream and spirit of Padre Memo, Lucha and Tere.
Teresa Martínez Delgado was born on May 19, 1947 in the village of La Grulla, municipality of Dolores Hidalgo. At that time, no schools existed in the countryside, so Tere’s parents sent her to the city to live with her grandmother and attend primary school. Thus she became one of the few campesinas in the region who knew how to read and write. At the age of 12, she began to work as a literacy teacher and participated in courses given by Padre Memo on organizing, agriculture and handcrafts.
Tere with Padre Memo and Lucha Rivera in the late 1960s.
1968 was the year in which repression of liberation and social movements reached its apogee throughout the world; in Mexico, with the slaughter of hundreds, perhaps thousands of students in the in infamous massacre of Tlateloco.
In northern Guanajuato, large landowners of the region, allied with conservative clergy & worked together to eliminate the campesino movement. Taking up the banner of anti-communism, they expelled several progressive priests from the diocese, including Padre Memo.
In 1970, Tere joined the board of directors of CEDESA, and in spite of powerful opposition, stood firm as the youngest director of CEDESA, continuing to organize in the communities, and she helped to develop collective projects such as corn-grinding mills and beekeeping.
As a founding member of the Beekeepers Union of Northern Guanajuato (ASANG), Tere remained an avid advocate for natural bee products all her life. While still in her 20s, Tere also took charge of coordinating the construction of the CEDESA facilities on the 50-hectare tract that Padre Memo had purchased for the training center.
At that time, the young CEDESA team lived in rooms they had constructed in the “El Socorrito” church in Dolores, and took turns working in the communities and working on the CEDESA land, applying agricultural techniques they had learned: terracing, creation of windbreaks, and soil conservation.
In the mid 1970s, the primary supporter of CEDESA, the Misereor Foundation, stopped payment of the construction grant they had been providing because of accusations that the young CEDESA workers were “a nest of communists, embezzlers of funds … and invaders of temples.”
After four years of extensive auditing, the charges were found groundless. Construction resumed and the CEDESA offices, meeting rooms, kitchen, dining room and dormitories were finally completed in 1979.
The CEDESA team, in front of their newly completed facilities.
Tere is in the first row, second from the right (her younger sister Chela stands behind her, in a white blouse and Lucha next to Chela, in a blue shirt and skirt.
This hard-won accomplishment, according to the book that Lucha, Tere and Chela wrote, CEDESA, the Social Struggle against Poverty in Northern Guanajuato, was seminal to the work and spirit of the grass-roots organization they had created.
“Thus we were finally able to experience the freedom to live in our own space. From that moment on, the project was entirely in our hands … we felt we had finally won the independence to be the creators of our own development, as individuals and as communities. We finally reached the end of the tunnel that had limited our possibilities for growing … and we took on the risks of our own choices.”
During the tumultuous 1980s, CEDESA, with Tere, Lucha and Chela at the forefront, helped campesinos defend their rights to land and water though the regional Union of Campesino Communities of Northern Guanajuato (UCCANG) that they helped to form.
They marched on the capital, demanded the release of compañeros who had been jailed, won titles to land for communities against large landowners, and drinking water systems for more than 50 communities in the municipalities of San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo, San Felipe, San Diego de la Unión, and San Luis de la Paz.
In the video On the Road toward a Dignified and Sustainable Life: CEDESA Tere says:
“This period was important, a time of transition, of radical change. Instead of each individual working in his community, the communities all started working together."
In 1993, CEDESA undertook an internal evaluation in order to plan for the future. In response to the pervasive problem of immigration and abandonment of the countryside, UCCANG and ASANG prioritized strengthening the family economy – not just financially but also revalorizing the contributions of all members, including domestic and community work – as a way to enable campesinos to stay on the land and draw sustenance physically and spiritually.
Tere helped define and implement the “Sustainable Campesino Home” project, encouraging families to root themselves in their land by producing their own food (using eco-technologies such as rainwater-harvesting cisterns, gray-water recycling, dry toilets, and wood-saving stoves) and surplus to trade or sell. Tere was passionate about this campesino self-sufficiency project, especially the fair trade and solidarity economy aspects.
In 1999, she was elected president of the Mexican Network of Community Commerce. She was the driving force behind the Feria Nacional de Productores y Consumidores held annually in Dolores Hidalgo, offering a wide variety of organic products and handcrafts, and promoting barter and social coin as well as environmental consciousness and alternative health. She also helped organize various local community markets, including barter fairs in Dolores Hidalgo and the Tiangüis Orgánico de San Miguel de Allende (TOSMA).
Tere travelled extensively promoting and participating in community commerce /fair trade and solidarity economy conferences and meetings, including frequent visits to Mexico City and Guadalajara, and international trips to South and Central America.
At the same time, she was in charge of all the programming of workshops and courses at CEDESA, including short workshops on diverse topics such as cooking with soy which she herself taught, composting and bio-intensive gardening, construction with adobe, quilt-making, cultivation of organic nopal and a large variety of products (jams, pickles, sweets, liquors, capsules,etc.), building solar water heaters and distillers, and the use of medicinal plants; and months-long diploma courses on groundwater; apitherapy (use of bee stings and bee products for alternative health treatments), and rural tourism. Tere’s interests and capacities were amazing.
“Las Muchachas” - Chela, Lucha and Tere
Former editor of the Atención San Miguel newspaper, Suzanne Ludekins says: “It was a privilege and honor to collaborate with Tere Martínez. Tere's love and respect for the land and its people was an inspiration.... Tere's commitment to educating, empowering and helping the people of the campo she loved so much showed me the true ethics of a social activist.”
Teresa Martinez Delgado: a woman who dedicated herself heart and soul to a dream that she helped to make real, whose exemplary life is a light for those who follow
(written by Holly Yasui - Cedesa - & irreplaceable member of the Water Project team !)
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