Adonias Xajpot joined the Women’s Justice Initiative in 2019 as its Driver and Concierge and has served as an integral member of the team, especially during WJI’s COVID-19 response efforts.

What is your role with the Women’s Justice Initiative?

As WJI’s Driver, I ensure that our staff arrives on time when they visit various communities to hold workshops. I also accompany them when they need to go to the courts. More recently, I drove staff members as they delivered food baskets in response to the pandemic.

Can talk more about your experience with the food deliveries?

To be honest, there were some difficulties. At the start of the lockdown, it wasn’t always easy to enter certain communities and in some cases we even needed to have signed letters granting us access to areas. Also, many of the roads in rural Guatemala are not good so it wasn’t always easy to get to some places, especially when it was raining.

Nevertheless, it was worth it. Countless women and their spouses found themselves unemployed after the start of the pandemic and they were so grateful for the support from WJI. It was a huge help for them.

Why do you think the work of WJI is important?

There are so many women in rural communities that are unaware of their rights and WJI trains them to know and defend those rights. Women feel grateful to WJI and the Community Advocates for supporting them, loving them, and wanting the best for them. The work of WJI is incredibly important, but as the organization continues expanding to new communities, we recognize that there is also still much work to be done.