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!