The town of Maseual is located in Mexico, in the village of Cuetzalan, northeast of the state of Puebla. The mountains, pine groves and prairies that leave behind the capital of Puebla and sprinkle with green the closed fogs seem like Euskal Herria. But the narrow roads, the colorful houses and the smiles filled with humility remember that it's very far from there. The cooperative association Tosepan Titataniske is located 10 minutes from the arrival at the village of Cuetzalan.

Tosepan Titataniske: “Together we will win”

In 1980 the Tosepan Titataniske Cooperative Society was founded (“we will win together”, in the Nahuatl language): “By the end of the 1970s, the sugar harvest was very low and became very expensive; this basic product could not be bought by citizens. Then, in the communities of San Miguel Tzinacapan and Xeloxochilco, farmers' shops were created to obtain sugar at a lower price. They also started selling rice, beans and other commodities that became cooperatives. These types of cooperatives were set up in other communities in the town of Cuetzala and created the cooperative association.” Thus lived the beginning Yolita Argueta, a professor of the Tosepan community.

In these cooperatives, citizens bought the products for their own consumption and then farmers began to produce and sell these products. At first, they started producing sugar, but today they also sell coffee, guindilla, honey, cinnamon, banana, wine, spirits and other products made with honey through cooperatives.

In 40 years it has grown a lot in Tosepa and today there are more than 430 cooperatives in 29 localities. In addition, eight cooperatives have been created that provide service to partners throughout the country, including radio, education, health or housing, tourism, credit and savings distribution, women ' s union and bamboo sales, among others.

The savings and credit cooperative was established in 1998. Members retain their savings and hand them over to their members by credit: “Each member set a small amount of money and we raised 630,000 pesos. Today we have achieved 300 million pesos through this cooperative,” said Aldegundo González, head of the Training Center of the cooperative Tosepan. Through this cooperative, the housing program works: “The savings cooperative offers credit to the partners who are going to build their home and the interest rate is very low. Through this program we have built more than 15,000 homes in the last 10 years,” stressed González.

“Land cultivation is the only way to defend the country”

Caring for the mother's land is Maseual's main characteristic: “In the Tosepan community we have worked in those years on the universal values of cooperativism, but in 2013 we added the values that define the conception of the world of the indigenous Maseual people: trust, have a good heart and take care of the environment in which we work to return it to future generations as we have received,” explains Aldegundo.

In recent years, the country has been subjected to serious threats. With the permission of the Government of Peña Nieto, they intend to build hydroelectric projects, mines and an electric power substation in the northeast mountain range of Puebla. “Ten years ago they have information about these projects, but we have not been given any information. At Cuetzalan we realized that they wanted to make high-voltage lines, as well as four hydroelectric mines. The president and the government told us that the energy obtained from these projects is for the communities, but most of the population has electricity,” said Isabel Bautista, a member of the defense of the country. Communities are organizing to deal with these projects. “Since we were aware of the project, we have begun to gather information, to meet with the authorities and to hold assemblies on the defense of the country,” Bautista explained in the camp they have built to deal with one of these projects. The project was resourced and is currently in lockdown.

But they don't trust him. “On the outskirts of Cuetzala there is an electric power substation project. In November, we held a demonstration calling for it to stop. We were told that work could begin from that day on, and we decided that we should be present at all times. In the event that the works begin, our task is to advise the people. Force is the unity of the people and that force is of all communities,” Bautista stressed. Since 2013, all communities have held assemblies against the project. At the end of April the nineteenth assembly was held and the members of the indigenous peoples decided to start taking steps in favour of energy sovereignty: “The goal is to disconnect from those cables that provide us with electric power and minimize the causes of these projects,” González stressed.

20 years promoting mass identity

In the lands of the Tosepan cooperative, they speak the Nahuatl language and realized that knowledge and use decreased. They have been working for 20 years to strengthen their identity: “When we talk about identity, we also talk about language, dance and motherland, and all of them are important,” says Professor Gabriel Vázquez. Tosepan School was founded in 2006. It's not like the other schools, and that's clear to Tosepan members: “We work with the spirit, energy and conception of the world of Nahuatl identity and that is what we are working through the Tosepan methodology,” explains Vázquez.

The situation of the Nahuatl language is still very sensitive and it is clear that they have to continue working: “A 30-year-old will probably speak the Nahuatl language. As the students' age decreases, some speak that language, but others do not. 28% of the population aged 3 to 30 do not speak the Nahuatl language,” explains González.

The greatest loss occurs in children's school and the most important task of these years has been to create teaching materials: “We’ve created a lot in these years. We are implementing different projects to create material to work in our language.” These projects include the dictionary and the Maseualpedia project. They started the documentation work on the Nahuatl language and created a dictionary of 8,245 concepts. The cooperative's research group has been getting information about the country's trees, plants and flowers, and its goal is to gather all that information on the Maseualpedia website, to be consulted by the public whenever they want.

Good life as an objective

The goal of the next 40 years is to take steps towards a good life, and that includes a lot of things. Paulina Garrido, President of the Tosepan Cooperative, explained this: “On the one hand, there is a part of the identity: we have to see who we are, how we are and how we want to live, but we will also continue to expand the values of the cooperative, strengthening practices based on the solidarity economy, community work and food and energy sovereignty.”

As anthropologist Pierre Beaucage says, small people can do big things together, and an example of that is the Tosepan Titataniske cooperative.