Professor of Geography Dawn Bowen has co-authored an article, “Education, Leadership, and Conservation: Empowering Young Q’eqchi’ Women in Guatemala,” with Amy Leap Miller, UMW ’12, which has just been published in the International Journal of Educational Development. This paper marks the culmination of many years of field work in Guatemala with young women who participate in Community Cloud Forest Conservation’s Women in Agroecology Leadership for Conservation (WALC) program. Young women earn small scholarships that enable them to continue in school beyond grade 6 by learning about sustainable agricultural practices, income generation, and farm management, as well as nutrition, health, and human rights. This article is the first scholarly assessment of the program and its role in promoting female empowerment.
Students Plant Trees with Guatemalan Students
This past spring break, 16 UMW students traveled to Guatemala to learn about agroecology and community development. Students spent several days with elementary school children from two different villages who came to participate in Community Cloud Forest Conservation’s Kids & Birds program. They planted trees with the children, looked for and identified migratory birds, and located tadpoles and other aquatic creatures in the Mestila River.
In addition, all students learned about improving agricultural practices, included the composting of humanure, planting traditional Q’eqchi’ Maya crops that are highly nutritious, and several soil conservation techniques.
While in Guatemala, UMW students took photographs and video for three film projects (Kids & Birds, Reforestation, and the Agroecology Center) that they will complete in the next few weeks. The purpose of the videos is to raise awareness and raise funds for the work being done by Community Cloud Forest Conservation.
Bowen Publishes Article about Field Work in Newfoundland
Dawn Bowen, professor of geography, has published an article, “The Roadside Gardens of Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula,” in the American Geographical Society’s Focus on Geography. This article was a result of her field work in Newfoundland in 2014.
Professor Co-Authors Article with Alum
Dawn Bowen, professor of geography, has co-authored an article, “Deforestation of Montane Cloud Forest in the Central Highlands of Guatemala: Proximate Causes, Underlying Drivers, and Implications for Sustainability in Q’eqchi’ Maya Communities,” with Ian Pope, UMW 2011, in the International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology. The article draws from Ian’s research with contributions from other UMW alum, Adam Hager, Carl Larsen, and David Chambers, all 2014 graduates, who completed field work under Bowen’s direction.
Bowen and Students Visit Guatemala during Spring Break

Jack Humiston ’15 and David Chambers ’14 measure clearings in the cloud forest using a GPS unit and a laser range finder. This allows them to calculate areas of deforestation. The students worked on this project with 2011 graduate Ian Pope.
Dawn Bowen, professor of geography, supervised an undergraduate research trip to Guatemala over spring break with University of Mary Washington students.
Jack Humiston ’15 and David Chambers ’14 researched a project titled “Mapping Deforestation in the Sierra Yalijux Mountains of the Alta Verapaz, Guatemala” over a nine-day period.
“This experience is incredibly important because students actually apply the concepts/techniques that they learn in the classroom to a real world setting. In this case, the students are also helping to produce maps for Community Cloud Forest Conservation, the local NGO that I work with, to show landowners the threats to their property, the consequences of not protecting land, and promoting a preservation plan with the local community,” said Bowen. “These young men can now state that they have done field work and used the data that they collected to produce maps.”
UMW Geographers Gain Accolades
Two University of Mary Washington geographers were honored at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers this year in Roanoke, Va.
Ethan Bottone’s, 2014, poster presentation, “Documenting Language Erosion and Preservation Efforts in the Canadian Arctic,” was recognized as the best undergraduate research paper in human geography at the conference.
Professor Dawn Bowen, UMW Simpson Award Winner in 2012, was one of three faculty to win SEDAAG’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
SEDAAG represents geography departments in public and private universities and colleges in 10 southeastern states. Go to sedaag.org for more information
Saving the Cloud Forest One Young Woman at a Time
In January, I traveled to Guatemala to interview young Maya women who had received scholarships to continue their secondary education. An organization, Community Cloud Forest Conservation (CCFC), run by Rob and Tara Cahill and several Guatemalans, began providing small scholarships for young women aged 13-24 about seven years ago. Its goal was to accomplish two things: educate young women, thus producing better educated mothers who would raise healthier, fewer and better-educated children, as well as providing them the opportunity to become teachers or nurses, or any other occupation of their choosing; and train them in agroecological techniques that would help directly improve the nutrition of their own families and help conserve the remaining cloud forest.
I spent a week with many of these young women, talking about what they had learned and what they hoped to achieve. I also saw the end product of their five-week course, where they had developed a proyecto de vida, or life project, a tangible goal that each and every young woman could achieve with dedication and hard work. In addition, they shared with everyone (about 65 young women were in the session that I observed) what they had learned about conservation and the need to protect the forest, the source of their drinking water, planting vegetables and fruits, nutrition, etc. Each small group produced a poster and a representative spoke to everyone about it…talk about a way to build self-confidence and self-esteem!
In theory, education through grade 9 is free in Guatemala. The reality is that the vast majority of the villages (see attached) where these young women live have only a primary school. In order for them to complete middle and high school, they must leave their villages, sometimes living as boarding students during the week or in special programs that operate on the weekends. There are costs associated with continuing their education that typically their fathers are unwilling or unable to pay, including transportation, school supplies and tuition.
CCFC offers $150 scholarships for young women who complete 25 days of work at Chiaxha’, an agroecology center that CCFC is developing in Guatemala’s central highlands. Here girls undertake practical activities, such as planting fruit trees and vegetables, learning about biodiversity conservation and the range of income generating activities from natural resources and acquiring values such as respect for nature and community resources, as well as human rights and the rights of women.
CCFC’s mission is to conserve what remains of the cloud forest in the Alta Verapaz, but they have learned that it is not possible simply to conserve the forest. Consequently, their approach has, by necessity, become very diversified. Part of that strategy is to equip young women with the knowledge and skills that they need to help conserve the cloud forest. It is a very small NGO that is having small but meaningful impacts. As I became a little discouraged last month, Rob reminded me that I have to focus on the big picture; they are throwing rocks into a fast flowing river in an attempt to find a way across. Some of the rocks land precisely where they can enable one to walk across; others fall off target. Nevertheless, many girls are gaining tremendous knowledge that they can take back to their villages and also have the opportunity to continue their education.
As always, my travels to Guatemala involve highs and lows. It is a beautiful country, with beautiful people, but it is also a country whose people and environment have been ravaged by war, poverty and a population explosion. What I learned during my most recent trip is that there is hope, even if it seems small. These girls hold tremendous promise for their families and their communities. The world is changed most, I believe, not by mega-projects that cost billions of dollars, nor by those which seek to aid hundreds of thousands of people. Instead, I understand how one person can be transformed and ultimately impact the lives of both current and future generations through her leadership.
— Dawn Bowen, professor of geography