Empower Guatemalan Families With Food & Nutrition

Your support makes it possible for more rural families in Guatemala to have better nutrition and more food because it allows us to work in new areas and innovative ways. Here are two examples:

The Basic Backyard Farm Program: Starting in the village of Chocolá more than 12 years ago, we developed and fine-tuned our original ideas into our integrated Backyard Farm Program, now serving 14 villages.  Despite months of pandemic protocols, this basic program continues to grow. In just the past 60 days, 25 new families have been welcomed into the integrated Backyard Farm program. 

Over 2000 families -- roughly 15,400 people -- have better lives based on what they learn in this integrated program.  Our extensionists work directly with each family for over a year, helping them acquire the skills to grow nutritious food, and the self-confidence to continue independently.

Our Extension Program, which teaches Backyard Farm methods, is also a success. Our team can't be everywhere, so we created a 7-month Extension program that trains local extensionists in a new community how to coach and mentor families in their area.  El Pilar, a coastal town in La Democracia, was chosen for this year's Extension Program because its climate and culture are quite different from the Chocolá area. Success here demonstrates the adaptability of our concepts and methods to a wide range of environments. 

The Extension Program in El Pilar began last April when our top team conducted the intensive 7-day initial training session for 3 new local extensionists and 22 "pioneer" families.  Our team and the trainees jointly assessed local growing conditions and food preferences, to adapt the training to focus on crops that would grow well and which families would gladly use in daily meals. Our team made 6 monthly follow-up visits for monitoring and support.

Today, El Pilar families are growing chard, mustard greens, tomatoes and onions for family use.  In some areas, families have joined to share a neighborhood nutrition garden, and other women have organized to also grow chili jalapeños, sweet peppers and cucumbers for sale. Our local partner, the Girasol (Sunflower) Association, will support the 3 new El Pilar extensionists as they mentor both the family nutrition gardens and the commercial projects. A big success for the families of El Pilar, and for Seeds for a Future's Extension Program!

We hope you join us in feeling very proud of the success participant families have built with what they learn from our dedicated and hard-working field team!

Please include Seeds for a Future in your plans for this year's Season of Giving!  Your contribution will help us add new families and new villages to the Backyard Farm program and create new ways to build self-reliant families and sustainable communities.

Thank you very much for your support !

Links:

• Webstie

 As you may remember from earlier reports, the Seeds Casa Granja (Backyard Farm) program has successfully helped more than 2000 families improve their access to nutritious food over the past several years.  Families love the program, and its effectiveness has been proven by a 3-year scientific study conducted by the highly respected Institute for Nutrition of Central America and Panama.

The Seeds Field Team works directly with about 75-100 families at a time, with new families coming in as others “graduate” to continue on their own.  But many more families need the benefits of the Casa Granja program! Our new Extension version works with a local partner organization to customize our methods and concepts to the target community and environment. 

Organization Girasol - For a dignified life has been working for 7 years, fighting malnutrition among the children in El Pilar, a cluster of small villages. Ten miles in from the Pacific coast in the Department of Democrácia, Guatemala, El Pilar is in a tropical environment dominated by corporate sugar cane fields.

Starting last April, our most experienced Extensionists have partnered with Girasol to bring our 7-month Casa Granja Extension program to El Pilar, to help families there learn to improve their nutrition and access to sufficient food.  Girasol identified 10 local women to be trained as Extensionists because of their strong positive attitude, friendly character and willingness to learn and grow in this new position. The results of Seed’s Casa Granja Extension program will be 10 new Extensionists, each with their own Backyard Farm and each one coaching and training 15 other El Pilar families to do the same. 

There are 2 keys to the success of our Casa Granja Extension program: it is customized to the specific ecology and needs of the target community, and our accompaniment strategy supports the potential of rural families to improve their own lives and future. In addition to sharing knowledge on raising plants and animals, Extensionists include coaching on nutrition sources; nutrition needs, especially for pregnant women and babies; family first aid and health needs; kitchen cleanliness practices and recycling.

The underlying goal of the Casa Granja Extension program is to produce a positive change in human behavior. This requires a participatory approach, so family members are not simply exposed to new skills and information, but are supported over time as they develop self-confidence and problem-solving abilities, and embed their new skills into their daily thinking and routine.

The Casa Granja Extension program in El Pilar runs through September 2021. The training and coaching provided by the Seeds Team, with on-going follow-up by Girasol and the new local Extensionists, will make big changes in El Pilar.  By this time next year, nearly every family in this cluster of tropical villages will have improved access to nutritious food!

We’re very proud that our Seeds team has created this Extension program to spread the benefits of the Casa Granja to many more families in Guatemala – a way to “clone” our self-help program in new villages.  Your support has made it all possible, and your continued generosity will help us extend the Casa Granja program to more needy families!!  

Links:

• Seeds for a Future