Centro Indígena Utzil
Our Team
Community leaders, cultural practitioners, and professionals advancing Indigenous knowledge, healing, and collective well-being.
Our Founding Team
Founders, one shared commitment
Centro Indígena Utzil was formed through the shared commitment, knowledge, and labor of its co-founders. Pascual Yaxon carried the original vision for the Center, rooted in Maya cosmovision, ancestral medicine, and community healing. Together, the founding team transformed that vision into an organization through cultural leadership, program development, community relationships, and organizational stewardship.
Pascual Yaxon
Co-Founder, Founding Visionary & Executive Director
Pascual Yaxon is a Maya Kaqchikel Ajq’ij and a bearer of the ancestral Maya worldview and healing traditions. He served with the United Nations Development Programme’s Indigenous Mental Health program and worked with the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team (SF HOT) in San Francisco, California.
He is certified as a Natural Health Consultant and Counselor by the International Association of Certified Natural Health Counselors in the United States, holds a certification in Medical Biomagnetism from Escuela Superior de México, and completed a diploma through Guatemala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy as a migrant leader.
Efraín Vicente Sajbin
Co-Founder & Cultural Director
Efraín Vicente Sajbin is a Maya K’iche’ Ajq’ij, youth leader, Indigenous rights advocate, and community mental health promoter with ECAP and the University of San Carlos of Guatemala. He has represented his community at international gatherings focused on food sovereignty, human rights, and Indigenous youth, and served as a member of the FAO steering committee in 2009.
He holds a certification in Medical Biomagnetism from Escuela Superior de México and completed a diploma through Guatemala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy as a migrant leader.
Rai Zaragoza Lemus
Co-Founder & Director of Strategic Development & Partnerships
Rai Zaragoza Lemus is a first-generation Chicano community advocate, program developer, and scholar with more than a decade of experience advancing culturally responsive wellness, youth development, restorative justice, and Indigenous-led initiatives.
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Born and raised in Santa Rosa, in the heart of Sonoma County’s wine country, Rai is the son of hardworking immigrant parents from Michoacán, Mexico. Working alongside his father and watching his parents build a life through determination and resourcefulness shaped his values of service, perseverance, and collective responsibility. After witnessing social and economic inequalities in his community, he began organizing through Chicano youth groups centered on culture and education.
Rai’s professional experience includes supporting young people and families through bilingual case management, leading restorative justice and diversion programs, coordinating Indigenous healing clinics, and developing land-based wellness initiatives. He created Rooted in Wellness to expand community workshops, healing services, food access, medicinal-plant education, and opportunities for families to reconnect with the land.
Grounded in family, ceremony, and community service, Rai works to build partnerships that advance healing, dignity, community well-being, and self-determination. As Co-Founder and Director of Strategic Development and Partnerships at Centro Indígena Utzil, he helps transform community vision into sustainable programs, funding strategies, partnerships, and organizational systems while ensuring the Center’s growth remains accountable to ancestral knowledge and the communities it serves.
María Eugenia Rosas Ramírez
Co-Founder & Director of Community Healing & Wellness
María Eugenia is an organizational psychologist, mental health specialist, grief support coordinator, and neuroscience coach with more than two decades of experience supporting Latino and immigrant communities through healing, transformation, and resilience.
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Born and raised in Mexico, she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Psychology from the Universidad de León and a Master’s Degree in Organizational Psychology from the Universidad de Celaya. Her early career included work as a Human Development Counselor for the County Office of Education in Guanajuato, Director of a domestic violence shelter for women and children, and psychologist at an educational center and children’s shelter in Jalisco.
She later earned a Master’s Degree in Mental Health and Psychological Intervention with Immigrants, the Socially Excluded, and Minorities from the University of Barcelona. Her additional training includes Trauma-Informed Interventions through UC Berkeley Extension, Psychological First Aid for Migrants and Refugees at UC Berkeley, Compassion Cultivation Training through Stanford’s CCARE, an intensive course in logotherapy in Vienna, and the LGBTQ+ Clinical Academy at Palo Alto University. For the past five years, she has also studied Maya cosmo-medicine and the knowledge of other Indigenous nations of the Americas.
Since 2022, María Eugenia has served as Spanish Services Client Services Manager at Kara Grief Services in Palo Alto, where she facilitates peer-support groups, accompanies individuals and families through grief, and works to make emotional-health services accessible, dignified, and culturally responsive. Since 2015, she has also collaborated with Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, facilitating bilingual support groups, coordinating therapeutic services, and accompanying survivors, including individuals in Santa Clara County correctional facilities.
Her practice brings together neuroscience, person-centered therapy, logotherapy, and a deeply humanistic worldview. She lives and works in San José, California, where she continues creating spaces for healing within her community.
Cofundadora y Directora de Sanación Comunitaria y Bienestar
María Eugenia es psicóloga organizacional, especialista en salud mental y duelo, y coach de neurociencias con más de dos décadas de experiencia acompañando a comunidades latinas e inmigrantes en procesos de sanación, transformación y resiliencia.
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Nacida en México, obtuvo la Licenciatura en Psicología Organizacional por la Universidad de León y la Maestría en Psicología Organizacional por la Universidad de Celaya. En sus primeros años profesionales fue consejera de desarrollo humano para la Oficina del Condado de Educación en Guanajuato, directora de un albergue para mujeres y niñez sobrevivientes de violencia doméstica, y psicóloga en un centro educativo y de protección para la niñez en Jalisco.
Posteriormente cursó la Maestría en Salud Mental e Intervención Psicológica con Inmigrantes, Excluidos Sociales y Minorías en la Universidad de Barcelona. Su formación adicional incluye intervenciones informadas en trauma en UC Berkeley Extension, Primeros Auxilios Psicológicos para Migrantes y Refugiados en UC Berkeley, Entrenamiento en Compasión de Stanford CCARE, un curso intensivo de logoterapia en Viena y la Academia Clínica LGBTQ+ de la Universidad de Palo Alto. Durante los últimos cinco años también ha sido aprendiz de la cosmo-medicina Maya y de los conocimientos de otros pueblos indígenas de América.
Desde 2022 se desempeña como Gerente de Servicios al Cliente en Español en Kara Grief Services, en Palo Alto, donde facilita grupos de apoyo entre pares, acompaña procesos de duelo y contribuye a que los servicios de salud emocional sean accesibles, dignos y culturalmente pertinentes. Desde 2015 también colabora con Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, facilitando grupos bilingües, coordinando servicios terapéuticos y acompañando a sobrevivientes, incluyendo personas dentro de instalaciones correccionales del Condado de Santa Clara.
Su práctica integra la neurociencia, la terapia centrada en la persona, la logoterapia y una visión profundamente humanista. María Eugenia vive y trabaja en San José, California, donde continúa creando espacios de sanación en su comunidad.
Community Partners
Our team brings together lived experience, cultural knowledge, and professional expertise to serve our communities with integrity and care.
Grounded in Northern California, our work continues to expand through partnerships and community-led efforts across Central and Southern California and other regions nationwide.