In this presentation we show how community empowerment allows peasant indigenous communities a resilient generational and transgenerational memory in which the structure of community care and transmission is decisively configured. These attributes are reflected in sustainability practices that face environmental challenges, where elderly indigenous women play a fundamental role. The methodology used was an extensive bibliographic review on the subject, taking into account the perspectives of different authors and also field studies with rural indigenous communities located in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico. This work shows that the model of the retired and isolated elderly from this community is anachronistic. The evidence indicates that their roles are deeply intertwined with the daily structures of care, production, material reproduction, defense and care of their territories, in a place plenty inserted in the community structures.