Empowering Sex Workers in Guatemala

In 2005, with two of my students, I started a literacy program in a red-light district in Guatemala City. In 2007, we became a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of the rights of sex workers in Guatemala (i.e., Women for Justice, Education, and Awareness, known in Spanish as MuJER). Today, MuJER provides literacy classes and accelerated elementary school, vocational training, antiviolence programs, and grassroots organizing. We have worked with hundreds of women, both at our Community Empowerment Center and “door-to-door” in red-light districts. Using the experience of MuJER, this article provides recommendations for professors interested in working with students to create a nonprofit in the developing world: select students whose skill sets are different than your own; start by creating a program (not by formally establishing a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization); and recognize that the nonprofit’s long-term sustainability requires commitment to grant writing for years to come

Economic growth · Economics · Empowerment · Grassroots · Literacy · Pedagogy · Political science · Promotion (chess · Public relations · Sociology · Sustainability · Vocational education · Sex work and related issues