This booklet brings together stories that reveal the heartbeat of youth-led SRHR activism in a country where young women and adolescents face steep barriers to exercising their rights. These pages take you inside real struggles and real victories: from the young people in Petén who refused to accept the closure of the Comprehensive and Differentiated Care Clinic for Adolescents, to the trans women in the OTRANS-RN initiative who returned to classrooms after years of exclusion.
These stories remind us that transformation does not happen in moments, but in movements.
Their journeys show us what Laura Ortiz describes so powerfully in her foreword. Change in Guatemala is not only about accessing a service or reopening a clinic, it is about reclaiming dignity in spaces where young people were once invisible, and about using collective power to shift systems shaped by conservative actors, discrimination, and inequality. When the San Benito clinic finally reopened its doors, it was not simply a policy win, it was the affirmation of thousands of adolescents who deserved a health system that sees them, respects them, and protects their rights.
The resilience of community
Behind each story is a community that refused to give up. Youth leaders gathering signatures, organizations amplifying demands, congressional champions offering political support, and feminist activists pushing conversations forward even when the odds were stacked against them. The booklet also honors the 12 organizations of the Guatemala Community of Action, whose conviction and tenderness gave the We Lead program its soul. It celebrates the work of leaders like Helen Leiva, Carmen Reyes Alfaro, and Rolando Gómez, who helped transform collective frustration into coordinated advocacy. And it acknowledges the warmth and creativity of the Guatemala team; Sara Mux, Esther Alcahe, and Alejandra Solano, whose guidance strengthened every step of the journey. These stories remind us that transformation does not happen in moments, but in movements. And in Guatemala, those movements are being led by young women whose voices no longer wait to be invited, they pave the way.
