The 1996 Guatemalan Peace Accords stress the importance of civilian participation in policy-making in order to ensure social justice. The Peace Accords, however, have yet to be implemented, and as a result the indigenous population of Guatemala continues to suffer from gross discrimination, the denial of education and forced enlistments to Civil Defense Patrols to aid the Guatemalan Army. Founder of the Council for Ethnic Communities "We Are All Equal" (CERJ), Amilcar Mendez Urizar is working to protect the constitutional and human rights of the indigenous community in Guatemala.
The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights (CHR) partnered with Urizar to help improve CERJ's strategy to increase the level of respect for human rights for the indigenous population. Through the indigenous population accounts for about 60% of the general population of Guatemala, they only account for about 5% within universities.
