Kalmekak is dedicated to the advancement of Aztec Mexican American Indian (Nahua) culture, language and sovereignty. Through education and community organizing, Kalmekak aims to bridge the divide created by international borders, regional variations, and intergenerational divisons created as a result of colonization and the imposition of market-based economics. The Mexican linguistic and cultural paradigm represented by the continuity of the Nahuatl language is a living body of knowledge of the customs, history, and way of thinking of one of the Americas? most influential cultures, the Toltec diaspora. This diaspora is known as a Uto-Aztecan metacultural root. However, there is now a danger that, in as little as a few generations, Nahuatl could disappear as a functional language as Spanish and English become the dominant means of communication among all Indigenous Peoples - we aim to stop this trend. Kalmekak organizes youth leadership, educator cultural pedagogical exchanges and opportunities to learn from traditional elders immersed in sovereign pueblos and barrios in both Mexico and the United States. Our work is at the forefront of a national movement of indigenous peoples in the United States as indigenous educators and communities establish autonomous, community-based schools in reservations and urban centers throughout Native America. In Mexico, our work has elevated the attention given to the need for high-quality indigenous teacher preparation, and successful maternal language programs. In California, we have become the first and only school authorized by the California Department of Education to recruit and train Nahuatl language teachers as participants in the U.S.-Mexico California Department of Education (CDE) Exchange Visitor Program.

In late 2009, representatives of the International Baccalaureate traveled to Mexico to follow up on months of initial contacts. Semillas has since then continued talks with IB World Schools in Mexico and in the United States, which led to the development of a full proposal for an 18-month project in which the whole IB global community would participate. In August of this year (2012), and with the support of the General Coordination for Intercultural and Bilingual Education, Secretary of Education, the community-based network of Nepohualtzintzi practitioners, the office of Bilingual, Migrant Education (PROBEM) in the state of Morelos, Mexico and Semillas convened twenty-five educators in Mexico City and in Xochicalco, Morelos for the international theme of the Project of Promotion of Education in Mexican Nahuatl.

Currently our expertise includes:
? Indigenous charter school incubation
? Indigenous school facility design and development
? Indigenous educator professional development: epistemology, pedagogy & radigogy
? International education consulting
? Inquiry-based education consulting
? Indigenous education consulting
? Community-based school public relations
? Indigenous parent organizing and leadership development
? Indigenous youth organizing and leadership development
? Indigenous Peoples Right (UNDRIP) Empowerment and consulting
? Indigenous nation building
? College-bound, multi-dimensional Indigenous student character development
? Common Core Aligned Student and School Assessment
? School and program accreditation consulting
? Teacher selection and recruitment
? Nahuatl language and curriculum development
? Nahuatl legal court translation
Through our work, we have supported the education of over 400 students from kinder through twelfth grades, touched the lives of up to one thousand other people through their family members and reached thousands more through community cultural events we organize regularly.
The activities of Kalmekak are aimed at arresting cultural decline by working with parents, elders, youth, community leaders, teachers and administrators in indigenous communities to teach in a more learner-centred, linguistically aware manner focusing upon education which advances: 1) maternal language, 2) autocthonous culture, 3) autonomous education and 4) universal access for indigenous children to national and international educational institutions. Drawing on more than 13 years experience in education, Kalmekak is collaborating with international educational organizations as well as state and federal authorities in Mexico and California with the intent of training indigenous teacher leaders in student-centred, linguistically aware, internationally-minded teaching towards the dissemination of an autochthonous design of ancestral schooling known as the Kalmekak ? ?place of tying of the houses? which promote the self-determination and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples through education, community organizing and the regeneration of ancestral knowledge. No - Marcos Aguilar, Mexico-US,
Cuaxtle Felix Evodio, Mexico-US,
Juan de la Cruz Farias, Mexico KALMEKAK2015Synopsis.pdf