Ruta Yucatán Sustainable Culture Support Collective

25th Oct 2022

Mexicolore contributor Ana Wendy Perera Franco

Thanks to the British Mexican Society we were delighted to hear recently of this initiative by the Colectivo Ruta Yucatán to support a local Maya ballgame team aiming to reawaken an interest and pride in the community’s Maya roots and heritage. This article was written by Ana Perera Franco, Director of the Collective, leader-writer, and winner of the “Raíz México” 2021 call from the Mexican Secretary of Culture. Ana is a Cultural Promoter with a special focus on supporting the creative economy, as certified by Yucatan’s Secretary of Culture, UTM and IYEM, a project sponsored by the International Fund for Cultural Diversity of UNESCO.

The Ruta Yucatán Sustainable Culture Support Collective project was born some three years ago, arising from our first-hand experience of socio-environmental issues faced by rural communities in our local state, such as lack of job opportunities, gender inequalities, discrimination, and land destruction and appropriation.
This led us to travel to these communities, to get to know local artists and their diverse means of expression, creative talents, culture and traditions.

Our objective
To meet, connect and collaborate with and hence empower local artists and creatives, in order to sow the seeds of a new creative economy in these places, as part of a sustainable development movement, to reduce socio-environmental problems arising from the exodus of youth from rural communities – the aim being for them instead to become agents of change in their own neighbourhoods. Too often young people of Maya origin prefer not to say where they were born, and end up being labelled gang members, delinquents, and trouble-makers. To fight against this, Maya youths are becoming warriors against adversity, struggling not just to survive but to build a better society.

The Ruta Yucatán Collective and youth from the Maya Pok ta pok ballgame in Tahdzibichén, Mérida, Yucatán
We came across this group – called ‘A wooje maax on’ (‘You Know Who We Are’) at the community centre in rural Tahdzibichén, playing Pok ta pok, under the direction of a young lad called Carlos Alberto Chi Bacab, who, like the others in the group, is of Maya descendancy. Known on the street as Monchi, and inspired by another local teacher who had already set up a ballgame team, he established the group in 2017, trying to divert youngsters away from the addictions of alcohol, drugs and gang behaviour. The statistics prove he has succeeded. Now a lawyer and winner of the Yucatán State Youth Award 2021, this young leader manages the Tahdzibichén sports committee, bringing together children and youngsters of all ages, both boys and girls.

These young people practice this ancestral ritual sport not as ‘folklore’ but as a serious sporting activity organised from within their own community.
When we first met them some two years ago we noticed that the games and the instructions for them were all conducted in their native Maya tongue, giving them the chance to speak the language of their ancestors in their day-to-day lives, boosting their self-empowerment and appreciation of their own pre-Hispanic roots. So we set to to support them.

We managed to get them to participate in a conference on the meaning of Pok ta pok in Maya civilisation, led by the director of the archaeological zone of Dzilbichaltun, an event that helped them in their training and rediscovery of their Maya heritage.
To tackle the discrimination and prejudice often experienced where the ballgame is performed, they deliberately avoid taking on youngsters with particular physical characteristics ‘representing’ Maya youth, and tend to choose dancers.

Working directly with the ballgame group, our job is to:-
• organise, promote, network, find and transport them to performance venues
• spread and publicise through media channels the importance of the universal message they promote as Indigenous youth seeking respect for their lands and for the environment
• run workshops, to provide them with the tools they need to take part in arts meetings and wider events
• raise funds for them to obtain recycled materials, so they can make their own sports kit and costume items

• enable them to approach artists in other sectors
• develop alongside them a business model enabling them to find self-employment within their own community
• provide mentoring in the field of human and artistic development
• create programmes to take to their community, enabling them to transmit and promote their culture from their own real-life neighbourhood perspective, starting from the discrimination, stigmatisation and inequalities they struggle against simply for being Mayas (unemployment, prejudice against traditional Maya culture, lack of quality education…)
• promote their endeavours in youth recognition events.

All this, respecting their ways, their land, their collective rights, and without taking over their projects – our job is one of support, networking, accompaniment and training. This we do entirely from our own pockets, as a non-profit organisation. This isn’t easy and we struggle sometimes to carry on, but carry on we must, without leaving anyone behind.

Our work has led us to develop other social enterprise projects, in areas ranging from arts and crafts to cooking and fashion – all in line with the UN’s Agenda 2030 supporting sustainable development. We nominated the ballgame team and they won an award in the Youth Awards 2030, congratulated as messengers of goodwill for their contribution to caring for the environment in their community.

It gives a major boost to our youth team to know that their ancestral sport and their contemporary Maya culture can be read about and seen abroad: they may even dream that one day people may visit their community from far away to witness them practising their sport.

‘Playing Pok ta pok is a passion. Seeing the ball rebound makes me happy, It fills me with joy to be part of history that our Mayan ancestors passed down to us, and that now we continue. We have the chance today to transmit the pride of being Mayan, with this beautiful game, to our society and to future generations’ (Carlos Alberto Chi Bacab, team manager)
’This sport and game is wonderful to me, it represents our culture, our land; it makes me feel I am part of the ancient Maya world, that I share that greatness; hitting the ball makes me feel Maya’ (Rigel Chí, team player)
’Playing Pok ta pok makes me feel proud to be Mayan’ (Cielo Chi, team player).

All photos kindly supplied by Ana Perera Franco.

Mesoamerican limerick no. 40: ode to Pok-ta-pok:-
Just one of their great claims to fame
Is the ritual Maya ballgame.
Since ‘pok’ means a ball
And ‘ta’ means a wall,
Like ping-pong, it’s all in the name!

Locate Tahdzibichén on Google Maps British Mexican Society website