Provide Organic Gardens for 20 Indigenous Women

This month, the women of Chumanzana learned how to prepare organic fertilizer, insecticide and fungicide. They had been looking forward to this demonstration for a while now. Thanks to the previous donations, the women learned how to prepare these resources to prevent pests from their gardens and to ensure their gardens stay healthy and vibrant. During this workshop, the women were enthusiastic to collaborate with one another. They gathered ingredients and worked together to build a fire to boil water in order to prepare fertilizer and insecticide.

Tomasa Mateo and María Isabel said it was a beautiful experience to learn how to create organic fertilizers. They know that this skill will be beneficial for the garden that they share together. After only 3 months of participating in the gardening project, they have already harvested half their garden for their own consumption and they have harvested the other half to sell. The garden feeds their family with nutritious food and provides extra funds for other needs.

There are still several women in Chumanzana on the waiting list, eager to join the gardening project. Please join us on Global Giving’s Bonus Day: Wednesday, June 15th starting at 9:00am EDT to give more indigenous women in Guatemala the opportunity to garden. Your contributions will be matched up to 40% as long as giving funds last! Consider that $25 will provide a woman with start-up funds to invest in her garden and a donation of $50 will help her buy new tools to manager her crops.

Another participant, Manuela says she’s very happy with her garden. She and her family have already enjoyed chard, carrots, and cilantro from her garden. With the help of her daughters, she’s already planted more seeds. Her husband is also very happy and proud of their family garden.

Only after a few months of joining the program, these women have gained invaluable skills that will have a ripple effect in their community. They are gaining knowledge and resources to sustain themselves with nutritional produce. They are improving the nutritional health of not only their families, but inspiring the wider community.