Home Gardens for 200 Families, Oaxaca, Mexico

Dear GlobalGiving Supporters,

During the implementation of this project and with your valuable support we have benefited more than 100 families with home and community gardens. Since our last update, we conducted 3 workshops with a total of 80 participants to:

a) Strengthen the capacities to implement home gardens and use organic compounds to improve production, as well as pest and disease control.

b) Produce native plants and trees with students from Colegio de Bachilleres No. 54 of San José Chiltepec in the community nursery.

c) Integrate young people from Colegio de Bachilleres No. 54 of San José Chiltepec in the rescue of traditional crops and identification of native seeds of heirloom corn.

With these training sessions, the community nursery was reactivated and the production of native plants and trees began with the support of community members and young people, which makes us very happy and excited.

These activities are aimed at continuing to replicate the home gardens, rescuing native seeds and ancestral crops that have been lost over time, but above all linking new generations with their territory, sustainable production practices, and healthy eating.

Finally, we will be implementing new family gardens in the communities and advancing the conservation of forests and jungles. We look forward to updating you on our progress!

Thank you very much for your trust and support of our initiative.

Dear GlobalGiving Supporters

During this period, we held several meetings with the 10 students who were successful in the implementation of home gardens to discuss how to continue with the production of vegetables. One of them decided to continue planting despite the predicted dry season with promising results so far, the others are going to wait until the rainy season.

We collected native corn seeds to test different methods of seed conservation with extracts of chili, garlic and some plants, evaluating their survival against fungi and moths, with promising results. The next step will be to carry out training on these seed storage methods in order to conserve the seeds for a longer period of time for later planting.

We also had a meeting with the community leadership of San José Chiltepec to activate the tree nursery and place the shade netting for the production of trees to support reforestation and we obtained a donation of compost for seedling production.

Finally, we have scheduled a new workshop in June for the preparation and use of organic compounds such as fertilizers, fungicides, and insect repellents, in response to requests for technical advice from community producers.

With your support, we continue working for the conservation of natural resources and the improvement of food sovereignty.  We are profoundly grateful for your partnership!

In solidarity,

Marco Acevedo, Mexico Program Officer