Why this project

Human urgency and living memory

In La Montaña de Guerrero, Indigenous communities such as the Mè'phàà, Na Savi, and Nahua share a territory exposed to hurricanes, floods, and landslides. Recent extreme events — including Hurricane Otis in 2023 and Hurricane John in 2024 — have deepened vulnerability for households, livelihoods, and cultural practices in a region already strained by access and environmental risk.

Beyond visible damage, climate change erodes intangible heritage: stories, rituals, crafts, music, and festivals that sustain identity and collective continuity. Those losses are hard to quantify, yet they are as real as damaged infrastructure: without documentation and dialogue between generations, cultural fabric weakens.

Weaving Memories (Tejiendo Memorias) responds to that urgency with an open digital archive, fed participatively with testimonies, photographs, and audiovisual records, and with in-person spaces that celebrate and transmit living memory. The project seeks to empower communities — especially young people and elders — strengthen cultural resilience in the face of climate impacts, and offer a model that can adapt to other regions facing similar risks.

People and team

Who documents this archive

A network of partner organizations, youth leadership, and cultural collaborators sustains the work in community and in the digital platform.

Partner organizations

How the team is structured

YoU-CAN

Youth UNESCO Climate Action Network (YoU-CAN)

A UNESCO-backed global network helping young people shape climate action and policy through education, advocacy, and intergenerational collaboration.

More about this organization

YoU-CAN is a global network supported by UNESCO that empowers young people to engage meaningfully in climate action and policy through education, advocacy, and intergenerational collaboration.

  • Support meaningful youth engagement in climate action and policy.
  • Combine education, advocacy, and intergenerational collaboration.
  • Implement Weaving Memories as the youth network in partnership with UNESCO.
View members

Gusanos

Gusanos de la Memoria

A self-managed Indigenous collective; here children and youth learn the Xtá Ratsá dance at the heart of the work.

More about this organization

Gusanos de la Memoria is a self-managed Indigenous collective. This project places children and youth at the center as learners of the Xtá Ratsá Dance.

  • Dance Master: Abertano Jerónimo.
  • Musicians: Malinalli J. & Alcander N.
  • Territorial Lead: Refugio Albino Gálvez (Comisario).
View members

REACCIONA

REACCIONA - Climate Action Network

A youth-led Mexican civil society organization strengthening climate advocacy with a justice lens and cross-sector collaboration.

More about this organization

REACCIONA is a youth-led Mexican civil society organization empowering young people to influence climate decision-making through justice and collaboration.

  • Strengthen youth influence on climate decisions with a justice lens.
  • Foster collaboration among young people and civil society organizations.
View members

UNESCO

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

UNESCO Mexico supports this initiative with technical guidance and aligns the work with the 2003 Convention for safeguarding living heritage.

More about this organization

UNESCO is the UN agency for education, the sciences, culture, communication, and information; its mission ties international cooperation to peacebuilding. Mexico’s office advises this project technically and aligns it with the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage alongside responsible documentary and archiving practice.

  • International cooperation across education, the sciences, culture, communication, and information.
  • Technical accompaniment from UNESCO Mexico.
  • Alignment with the 2003 Convention and best practices in cultural documentation and digital archiving.
UNESCO official website

LDYC

LDYC youth coalition

International youth-led network that, together with philanthropic partners, funded part of this archive after Hurricane Otis through a grant focused on intangible heritage.

More about this organization

Loss and Damage Youth Coalition (LDYC): a global youth alliance spotlighting severe climate impacts that outpace adaptation. Weaving Memories was selected under the coalition’s second youth grantmaking cycle and received USD 25,000 to respond to Hurricane Otis’s effects on intangible heritage in Guerrero. Funding comes from Open Society Foundations and Climate Justice Resilience Fund in support of youth-led work connecting cultural memory with climate justice.

  • Amplify youth leadership on urgent climate-driven harm.
  • Select Weaving Memories in the second grant cycle (USD 25,000) after Otis threatened intangible heritage.
  • Together with OSF and CJRF strengthen youth-led programs linking culture with climate justice.
Loss and Damage Youth Coalition website
Profiles

Team profiles

YoU-CAN

Project lead and global coordination

Odette Ferrer

YoU-CAN

Odette leads Weaving Memories and focuses on climate adaptation and transformative climate action.

Project conceptualization and design

Antonio Díaz Aranda

YoU-CAN

Antonio led conceptualization and design, building strategic collaborations for youth climate leadership.

Web development and data management

Jose Miguel Bustamante Limón

YoU-CAN

Jose Miguel develops the platform infrastructure and data architecture to preserve and scale the archive.

Outreach, documentation, and strategic foresight

Jessica Martínez Carrera

YoU-CAN

Jessica contributes to reporting, outreach, and visibility strategies to strengthen the initiative’s reach and projection. Her work focuses on climate adaptation, loss and damage, human mobility, and climate justice in Latin America and the Global South.

Gusanos de la Memoria

Photographer

Manuel Delgado (Manne Doez)

Gusanos de la Memoria

Afro-Mexican poet and photographer creating a visual archive centered on memory, body, and territory.

Cultural organizer

Bègò Mosso

Gusanos de la Memoria

Musician from Tlapa de Comonfort focused on revitalizing traditional music from La Montaña de Guerrero.

REACCIONA

Finance coordinator

Rogelio Barrio Rosas

REACCIONA

Rogelio coordinates project finances with REACCIONA for transparent implementation.

Thematic framework

Loss and damage (L&D) and cultural preservation

This project links heritage documentation with an explicit focus on loss and damage related to climate change, and with cultural preservation as a community-led response.

  1. Identification and recording

    Cultural practices, languages, and expressions are documented ethically and by consent in their territorial context, establishing a baseline of living heritage.

  2. Risk analysis and L&D

    Environmental and social pressures are connected to impacts on cultural continuity, making visible what is at stake for communities and for future generations.

  3. Transmission and safeguarding

    Intergenerational pathways are strengthened — education, open archives, and community dialogue — so ancestral knowledge remains usable and dignified today.

Explore the archive

Explore territorial expositions from the home page (map), or browse the general archive of photographs and sound from communities.

Home General archive