Empower Guatemalan Families With Food & Nutrition

 The past year was challenging worldwide, and rural families in Guatemala needed our Backyard Farm program more than ever.  Silvia from Santo Tomas explains why our self-help program is so important:

“The family garden helps in our household economy. The greens that we grow on the patio of the house are organic because they do not have poison -- the fertilizer applied to the plants comes from our compost heap and manure of animals from the corrals. Seeds for a Future is teaching us to work to benefit ourselves, to use available resources and to save money. The money that I spent in the market before, I can use now to buy little chickens. This is an investment for the whole family because sometimes we eat them and sometimes we sell them."

Seeds for a Future’s Field Team is very proud that, with your support, they were able to continue to help rural families, despite the pandemic.  Through our coaching and learn-by-doing method, the Team has helped improve the lives of families that are working hard to ensure good nutrition and sufficient food for every meal – and build better lives for themselves.

Since January 2021, we have increased the number of participating families, with six more families in Chocolá, where we started our program, and five more families in neighboring Santo Tomas la Union. In these two villages Seeds for a Future is well known for helping families fight malnutrition. In San Felipe, where we work mainly with breastfeeding women, four more families were welcomed so far this year.

In addition, we expanded to a new village, Chuisamayac, where 26 families signed up for our self-help Backyard Farm program. First steps are complete: each family’s backyard farm is well-started, and a community demonstration nutrition garden was installed. By the end of April, the first harvest will begin improving family nutrition and building participants’ feelings of self-confidence. By August, the entire family will be healthier, and they will likely have surplus production to sell.

After a year of coaching and guidance from our Field Team, these families will be able to confidently maintain their backyard farm, increasing overall well-being for all family members.  They will be able to live as independent members of their communities, and most families go on to gladly share what they have learned, to help others in need.  

We welcome 2 new extensionists, Monica and Abida, and together our Team currently serves a total of 82 families.  Over 2000 families have “graduated” from our Backyard Farm program since it was started over a dozen years ago. 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH for caring about poor rural families and helping them build better lives for themselves.  Help Grow Self-Sufficiency. Sponsor A Rural Family Today!

Guatemalan families in rural areas face many problems on a daily basis.  Some of the most fundamental of these are poor nutrition and lack of reliable access to sufficient food. Seeds for a Future's Casa Granja Nutrition Program helps families learn to overcome these problems by raising their own food in backyard farms.

As we work to ensure that families in our program will have success, we are very lucky to have 3 university students working with us. Antonio, Fernando and Emanuel, all students at Guatemala's highly regarded San Carlos University, have been an important part of the Seeds Field Team. All 3 students come from nearby villages and knew of Seeds for a Future from previous collaborations and events at our demonstration centers and they have been very excited to share their learning in ways that will benefit their home communiities.

Antonio and Fernando, both in their final year of studies, will be with us through the completion of their Supervised Professional Exercise (EPS) in Tropical Agriculture Engineering in February, 2021. Antonio's field research is “Evaluation of broccoli and cauliflower production when grown in containers vs. in raised rows.” The objective is to determine which method yields the best results for quality and quantity of production. Results are still pending as both crops are in the growth stage.

Fernando's EPS project investigates three eco-agriculture systems: the mandala form, a vertical form (in hanging containers) and a raised-row form. His goal is to determine the adaptability and productivity of four vegetables, chard, lettuce, tomato and onions, under the three systems. Fernando's report will present detailed best-practices for each agriculture system for best quality and yield of the crops.

Emanuel just finished his Supervised Professional Practice (PPS) project, in which he tested the effects of 4 different growing mediums on chile seedlings. The four mixtures tested were earth with: coconut fiber compost, worm compost, organic compost, and locally available commercial fertilizer. Attributes measured were plant height, root weight, biomass and number of leaves. The mixture with worm compost proved best for the chile seedlings. Emanuel is staying on with Seeds for a Future to continue his investigations and will test these soil mixtures with other desirable and nutritious food plants.

Results of the students' projects will be incorporated into the Seeds Team's coaching, to help ensure the families will succeed in improving family nutrition and achieving better access to diverse and sufficient food. 

To conclude this letter, we offer a message from Antonio:

"The time with Seeds for a Future has shaped part of my life, for which I am infinitely grateful. I want to highlight the importance of the hard work that has been carried out in Chocolá, through the Casa-Granja project, which has been of great help to the participating families and the community. I am grateful that my family, my parents and siblings are in good health. They have supported me morally, and sometimes, when they have been able, they have helped me financially. Most of us are people who help each other, since unity is strength! Thank you for your help!"

Links:

• Our website
• Become a Rural Family Sponsor
• Start a Fundraiser