After a long and tough journey we decided to exchange our weapons for the land and livelihood that was taken from us during the civil war. We can now show the world who we really are, how we think, and why we live this model of life.

We hope that while you spend time with us in our community, you can gain the understanding, sensitivity and significance of the thirty six year armed resistance we endured and the lessons that we learned from that conflict.

Coop Nuevo Horizonte is the result of our struggle and the beginning of a new history for the ex-combatants.

The women and men that compose Nuevo Horizonte were part of the guerrilla demobilization process that took place in the municipality of El Chaal (Department of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala). After trading our weapons for what we thought would eventually be peace, we were left concentrated in the government owned Papalha Ranch, with the support and observation of the UN mission (MINUGUA), The Land Fund and the Guillermo Toriello Foundation.

The Foundation and Banrural (the Rural Bank), negotiated with the government of Guatemala the purchase of a large farm called Nuevo Horizonte, thirty minutes from the city of Flores in the Department of Peten. The land negotiation began on December 11, 1997.

Not knowing the legalities of the process nor how long it would take, a first group of members of community moved into the property in order to condition the land for when the rest of community moved in. By 1998 the last group had moved into the farm.

In the first years after arriving the conditions for the people of the community were very harsh and infrastructure was almost non-existent”. “Without shelter, drinking water or electricity, with very low soil productivity, and with no capital or assets” the families had to literally work from the ground up to build the community that exists today.