Agros Blog

Thanks to everyone for the many questions and concerns raised in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Agatha.  We have been assessing the storm’s impact in all of our villages over the last week and here is an update by country:

GUATEMALA
No crop damages, all villages are fine.  There are, however, reports that two bridges into Nebaj have been washed out so staff and teams travelling to the Ixil will take alternate routes until the bridges are repaired.

EL SALVADOR & HONDURAS
Minor damages to recently planted crops in both countries.  Agros staff are working with the communities to replant and provide technical assistance to recoup the minor losses.

NICARAGUA AND CHIAPAS, MEXICO
No damages, all villages are fine.

We have been in contact with our Guatemala Director after the recent activity from Volcano Pacaya near Guatemala City, and there have been no damages or impact to Agros staff in the city. The regions where Agros works in Guatemala are far removed from the volcanic activity, which is only affecting the departments of Guatemala, Escuintla and Sacatepequez directly.

We are, however, concerned about Tropical Storm Agatha.  The sheer amount of rainfall has significantly increased the likelihood of flooding and landslides across the region.  Our field staff work weekly and directly in Agros villages and we will be surveying and assessing any possible damages throughout the week.  We’ll post updates here on the Agros blog as we have them.

None of the 40 Agros villages were created overnight. Each community grows from a variety of seeds: people, dreams, and dedication, planted and cultivated in diverse plots of land. The roots of an Agros village go deep, starting with a group of families who find and contact Agros in hopes of learning more about the Agros model and how they can start a village.

Since Agros is well established in many communities within the areas we work, families often hear about Agros through relatives, friends, or an Agros staff member. Though there is no ‘typical’ family, some common threads run through many of the groups that hope to work with Agros. Many have been displaced by war or other conflict, are renting land or moving around to find work, and are living on incomes between $.25 and $1.25 a day. These groups of families contact an Agros staff member and submit a preliminary application to begin the process of becoming a new Agros village. After this first contact, Agros and the families start the vital process of forming a relationship.

Building this relationship is the first and most vital step of starting an Agros village.  When Agros knows families well, staff can better know both the resources that the families have and the challenges that they face.  When families know Agros, they understand the development model, know what is expected of them, and are ready to commit to long-term goals.

After families and Agros have created a relationship, Agros staff helps families to find land that is available and suitable for farming. They must consider the quality of soil, water access, terrain, and geographic location of the land to ensure that it is the best place for families to begin a new village. After Agros staff performs an initial search, villagers visit land with the staff and begin negotiations with the land owner. Agros assists families in purchasing land, but it is often the families who play the key role in the negotiations and purchasing process. Once the land is bought, Agros and the families begin to integrate the Agros model by:

• Defining the Situation: Agros ‘hears the story’ of the families to learn about their past as well as to determine their strengths, experiences, and resources.
• Visioning the Future: Agros and the families discuss the families’ vision and values to define community goals and determine how they can work together to achieve them.
• Planning Projects: Families and Agros develop an annual and strategic village plan and create realistic goals for projects based on the resources available.
• Monitoring: Agros and families work together to ensure that decisions made are in line with the vision and values of the group as well as the five components of the Agros model and that project goals are being completed as planned.

No two Agros villages are alike: from the families that make up the village and the land they live on, to the goals they make and the challenges they face, each Agros village is unique. With the start of each village, Agros staff and villagers alike learn how to work together to confront each challenge that may arise. Through this process, the roots of an Agros village are planted, and families can begin the process toward sustainability, self-reliance, and land ownership.

For more information on how the Agros Development Model works, please visit the “How We Work” section of our website.

The following was written by Sabine Bernards, Agros International Service Teams Assistant:

In a culture where success is often measured by making, doing, and achieving, it is a challenge to step back to simply “be.” Members of Agros Service Teams traveling to Agros villages often find themselves confronted by this challenge, trying to reconcile their notion of what service means with the ideas of solidarity and accompaniment.

My own understanding of the concept of solidarity came on a recent four month long study abroad experience in El Salvador.  Before arriving, I expected to be doing some sort of tangible work—teaching English classes, working at local schools, or helping with community projects.  Spending two full days a week in the small community of San Ramon, however, I quickly learned that what I was there for was not to offer my services or my knowledge.  Instead of “doing” something, we spent much of our day simply spending time with the families of San Ramon, sitting in living rooms, drinking cafecitos, and talking for hours.

All around me I could see the effects of poverty and marginalization on the people I had grown to know and love; San Ramon is dangerously located at the base of an active volcano, children often leave school at early ages, and gang violence is escalating in the community.  It took me some time, but I finally came to understand that I, as an American college student visiting and living for four months, could not do everything.  What I could do was to graciously accept coffee and pandulce from Aida, Hector and Silvia, Areli, Anita, and so many others and simply “be” with and learn from the people of San Ramon.

Arriving in an Agros village, most Service Teams wrestle with similar tensions as I did in El Salvador.  They are ready to be put to work, hopeful to finish a project, or teach a class, all with the wonderful intentions of serving the community in tangible ways.  Despite these noble intentions, astute teams realize that their physical labor and their knowledge are not the reasons why they are so warmly welcomed into an Agros village. 

Villagers do not rely on teams to fix problems or finish projects; they welcome groups to “convivir,” to come and experience life with them and share in their hopes and dreams. People, not projects, are at the center of an Agros Service Team experience.  Physical labor, while at times very helpful, may not foster conversation, sharing, or relationships quite like sharing meals or cultural exchanges can. 

Slowing down to truly experience the reality of an Agros village opens service team participants and villagers up to a deeper understanding of the each other’s world.  In this deeper understanding lies solidarity, a sense of compassion and accompaniment that can last, both in the village and in the service team group, long after the team leaves.

For Agros service teams, this sense of solidarity can be humbling.  Learning about poverty and visiting Agros villages can often be overwhelming and instill a deep desire to solve problems or offer help.  After the experience of being in a village, participants realize that one week of work is a small but significant component of the complex and long-term work toward village development. 

As teams come to the honest realization that they cannot “fix” everything, they can step back from the need to accomplish tangibles and focus on intangible matters: relationships that can last and continue growing year after year with each service team trip.

Cross-cultural exchanges can be eye-opening, humbling, and transformative experiences for everyone involved. Learning about a new culture and experiencing life in another context can open one’s eyes to not only the differences, but also the many similarities. Perhaps most importantly, we can experience different ways of life and the values of another, especially through the generosity and humility of hosts who offer up their time, their homes, and their lives to guests for a week.  This, and many other aspects of the culture of Agros villages and of much of Latin America, can encourage us to slow down, to graciously accept kidnesss, and to begin to see past our desire to “do” and truly appreciate being in solidarity with others.

In November I had the privilege to visit Agros’ 39^th village, Bella Vista, in Honduras.  The land had been purchased in September, and in just two short months so much had already been accomplished!  We drove up the dirt road from Santa Barbara (the nearest city) and entered into the fog over the mountains where Bella Vista is located.  After 30 minutes or so, we parked next to a huge pile of PVC pipe and I was informed that we had arrived.

As I got out of the truck, through the mist I could see the frames of six different houses going up, and could hear the pounding of the nails going into the wood.  The PVC was for their water system, to bring the critical water from a neighboring water source to irrigate their crops.  Almost all the families had planted their corn to feed their families, and several had already begun planting coffee plants.

Two families had transferred from Los Bordos, the poverty-stricken slum along the rivers outside of San Pedro Sula, to return to the rural farming life they used to live. We had a meeting with all of the families and the new secretary of the group diligently took notes throughout our time together.  The Agros model in action… so quickly seeing transformation take place before my eyes.

By the end of the visit the mist lifted and I could finally see what everyone had been so excited about and what they named their community after… the beautiful view.  La Bella Vista!

Today the families in Bella Vista have accomplished the following:

• Over 50 acres of corn planted and growing for the families’ food security
• 6,000 new coffee plants sown, and 12,000 more in the nursery
• Over 5 acres of land in preparation to plant more coffee plants
• 80% of the ditches have been dug to lay the pipe for the irrigation system
• The full property has been measured and subdivided among areas for crops, forest and housing
• Five homes have been built (three of which are currently inhabited), and three more are in process of construction
• Three latrines under construction
• Six of the homes have water connections already
• Families have received trainings in soil conservation, use of composting latrines, leadership, and how to create community bylaws
• Three community members have volunteered to lead small workshops on hygiene, nutrition and cooking cleanliness
• Community is working with other organizations to access seeds, market their goods, as well as receiving some technical assistance in health and education from them
• Community is partnering with a local church

On January 6^th the families completed the process of dividing the parcels of land among themselves.  Our Honduras staff wrote me that everyone in the community was anxious and excited to see which plot would be theirs…for their homes and for their crops…  For their children and for their future.

Bella Vista has taken off and they are not letting any time be wasted as they build and design their community.

What a beautiful thing to witness.

The tragedy of the earthquake in Haiti is beyond what many of us can even fully grasp. We see shots of the wreckage, people still being miraculously pulled out of the rubble, and the large scale effort to just get food and water to people, not to mention much needed medical care.  The absolute suffering and horror that they have lived through over the past weeks has moved the world.

For those who survived–they now face the dual task of grieving all that has been lost while also rebuilding lives, homes, and livelihoods.  We cannot underestimate how hard this will be.

The overwhelming generosity that has been pouring from all over the world to help with the relief efforts has been amazing to see, and uplifting in light of the disaster and incredible need in Haiti at this time. It is critical and necessary.

But in time the abundance of emergency and relief care will wane, and eventually exit the country. When it’s time to rebuild, will Haiti have the tools and support to provide sustainable, long-term solutions for its people?  What will Haiti look like in a year, or three, or five to ten years from now?

In the trainings we provide all those who visit an Agros village, we outline the difference between “relief” work and “development” work. “Relief” work can be defined as the various interventions needed to meet immediate, critical needs (such as food, water, shelter, and medical care) in the aftermath of a disaster.  This is what we are seeing in Haiti right now.

“Development” work is a longer-term effort to provide opportunities to people to shape and rebuild their communities.  This includes stabilizing family/community economies;  creating access to education and healthcare;  building lasting food security for families; enabling people to build necessary infrastructure; and in the case of Agros, helping families own the necessary assets–such as farmable land–required to make the development effort truly sustainable.

This is what Agros does through our holistic community development model.  We empower rural families living in abject, extreme poverty to reach a level where they become land and business owners, generating sustainable income and becoming an active part of the regional community and economy.  Taking a long–term approach, we offer the training, credit, and partnership necessary for rural families to eventually build and own a sustainable community.   Families acquire the assets and knowledge to ensure that their future generations will live beyond the subsistence level.

Of course even this can be no guarantee that tragedy won’t strike and that the impact won’t be devastating.  Civil conflict, natural disaster, and disease will continue to harm and affect those who are the most vulnerable.

However, having more stabilized and strengthened communities and economies can help families weather disasters better, and can shorten the recovery time.

Haiti was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and the majority of families already lived in devastating poverty. The scale of the destruction is due in many ways to the already failing infrastructure and overwhelming poverty present in the nation when the earthquake struck.

As Haiti begins to rebuild, the development process must be driven by values and processes that ensure true sustainability.  As we’ve learned in Agros villages, the work of empowering impoverished and tragedy-stricken communities must start with the notion that the people themselves have the dignity and capacity to do it themselves.  What they need is tangible investment, opportunity, and support.

There are many hurdles to overcome, just as the communities we work with have overcome the suffering and damage of civil wars, hurricanes, and earthquakes. But it can be done–Haiti can be rebuilt.  And we hope and pray that the development efforts to rebuild and strengthen Haiti are truly successful, for the people of this small nation and for our world.

On my trip to Chiapas, Mexico in late September, I visited the community of Nuevo San Miguel Mitontic.  Agros has been working in this community since early 2005, and will be finalizing our work there in June of 2010.  The first community Agros chose to work with in Mexico, San Miguel is one of the few communities we work with who already had their own land.  They received their land in 1994 from the Mexican government and became an ejido, which is a community of indigenous people in Mexico who have received land from the government, which is then communally owned.

While this community did not have a land loan from Agros, part of the work we have done with them is to improve the use of their land and their stewardship of the land.  As in many rural communities, the families of San Miguel were practicing a technique called “slash and burn” where they burned their corn crops after harvest as a form to remove the dead stalks.  While this is an easier method to remove dead corn stalks, it is damaging to the soil and increases erosion.  Agros staff began working with the families to change this practice through a new project—the planting of fruit trees.  In 2006, three families accepted this challenge, did not burn (but instead mulched the dead plant material on their land) and planted their fruit trees. Jonas’ family was one of them, one of the key leaders of San Miguel. Soon after, Jonas got some additional fruit trees from the local government, and started a small fruit tree plantation on his land.

Over the past couple of years, each time I visit San Miguel, Jonas proudly shows us his fruit trees.  He began with nearly 80 fruit trees—avocado, citrus, and peach.  From there he became a promoter and participant in the development process, and worked to encourage other families to not burn their land and to plant fruit trees.  Today there are 58 families who have planted fruit trees on their land, for a total of over 26 acres of trees planted! There are avocado, lemon, orange and peach trees.  Not only has this radically reduced the practice of slash and burn and is improving the environment in San Miguel, but it is also a source of income for the families.  This year their trees are beginning to produce fruit and the families are coordinating to take their produce to the neighboring cities of Ixtapa and Tuxtla to sell.  This will continue to grow into a strong source of income for these families over time.

The week before my visit in September, the Journey With a Village partner (Sammamish Presbyterian Church) visited to have a final celebration with them.  They visited all of the projects the families have been working on, like the fruit trees, as well as rabbits, cattle, and the women’s embroidery and sewing projects.  They shared a special meal together and had a time of thanksgiving together, with families from both San Miguel and Sammamish sharing about how special the time they’ve spent together has been.  It was a celebration of the community’s successes and their ability now to carry these projects forward on their own.  When I arrived at the community the week after, the families shared with smiles on their faces of their time with Agros and Sammamish Presbyterian, and their pride in their projects and their work.  It was affirming to me that as we transition out of San Miguel, these families are ready to journey on their own.

Change takes time, but once it takes root, amazing things can happen.

Any day that an Agros family receives their land title is a very exciting day here at Agros. May 13th was an especially exciting day, because not only did two families get their land titles, but they were the first land titles to be transferred in El Salvador by Agros!

Both families are from the Agros community of San Diego de Tenango which was the second Agros village established in El Salvador.

To commemorate this special day we held a land title ceremony in the community of San Diego, and invited representatives from the other three Agros villages to share in the event. Before the ceremony was even set to begin, the community center filled with men, women and children excited to be there! After the usual speeches and formalities, our lawyer stood up and read the titles aloud… word for word. And then it was time to make the transition of ownership official, first with signatures by Cipriano and Maria Antonia from one family, and then German and Isabel from the other.

 

Two families became landowners this day, but an entire community shared in their pride of ownership. The San Diego village was started by a group of 18 families who had a long history of commitment to one another. Having been displaced first by civil war and then again by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the group came together through one man’s generous invitation to share his half-acre parcel of land with 18 other families to live on, and together they would cultivate the adjacent rented land. But because they could only rent the farmland, their income would always be limited and the lack of true assets meant they couldn’t qualify for any traditional enterprise loans to grow a fruitful business. So, with a shared tenacity and vision to improve their circumstance further, the group negotiated a purchase price to acquire the 141 acre parcel of rented land and make it their own in 2000 with Agros’ help.

This land title ceremony was a validation of their shared efforts and, based on the excitement on the faces of all in attendance, is one of many to come.

Patty Borja, the longest serving staff member in El Salvador, spoke at the ceremony and shared how much of an honor it was for her to be able to see this moment come true — to see the dreams of these two families become a reality.

This is land, hope, and life… realized.

After just 8 short months, Agros Mexico’s newest community Santa Fe Ajké has taken off, demonstrating a tremendous amount of work, energy and success. Nearly each family in the community is involved in a group project, using small loans and training provided by Agros to grow diverse crops or start a new business. This month, Agros Mexico staff reports the success of the first major agricultural project in Santa Fe Ajké — tomatoes!

Ten families are involved in the shared tomato project working together to produce as many crates as they can to sell in the local market. Starting from scratch on the new property, the families first cleared the land by hand using machetes, and then built an irrigation system. The group then planted the tomatoes, using techniques shared from both Agros staff and neighbors from nearby communities who have experience growing tomatoes as well.

Despite set backs in failed deliveries of seeds, strong winds and hiccups in the new irrigation system, the families are excited to see the first round produce 90 crates of tomatoes, equivalent to nearly 5,000 pounds!

Now the group is gearing up to finish up the tomato season, projecting to produce 150 more crates. With the sale of 13,320 pounds of tomatoes, the participants will earn approximately $1,240, providing their families with much needed income and seed money for their next economic adventure.

The families in Santa Fe Ajké are encouraged by the success of their first project and are looking forward to incorporating more income-generating activities in order to earn income year-round for their families. With the jalapeño harvest just around the corner, it looks like the enterprising families in Santa Fe Ajké are doing just that-well on their way towards crop diversification, year-round employment and economic self-sufficiency. Congratulations Santa Fe Ajké!

We are excited to announce the launch of Achotales, our 37th Agros village and our third community in Honduras.  This group of 25 families have come together with a single, basic dream — to develop and own land in order to create a thriving, sustainable community.  The families of Achotales are now well on their way to realizing this dream.

In April 2002, a group of twelve farmers began to organize and explore the possibility of owning fertile land.  At the time they were working as field workers for landowners in the northern part of the Gualala Santa Bárbara region of Honduras.  The poverty they had been forced to endure for so long was such that owning land was more of a dream than a tangible reality.

Along the way one landowner took heart in their cause and decided to lend them a piece of land, hoping that the National Agrarian Institute (NAI), an institution devoted to agrarian reform in Honduras, would eventually help them purchase the land.  While actual purchase through the NAI never worked out, they nevertheless spent four years working the land, cultivating beans and corn.  One day the group made contact with Agros International, and together they began to explore the possibility of launching an Agros village.

The group now known as Achotales is currently made up of 25 families. They have formed a leadership team, as well as Production, Security, Commercialization, and Health committees. They are currently able to provide food security for their families, utilizing 46 acres of corn and almost one acre of beans. The families are receiving training in organic agriculture and improved techniques for growing basic grains, as well as learning how to maximize their 0.8 acre plot of plantains.

Women have received training in growing and using nutritious plants to improve their families’ health, and two members of the community have been selected to receive training to serve as community health promoters.

Though the families are organized, hard working, and united, there is still a great deal of work to do.  The Agros development model is not a quick fix or silver bullet.  We take a long term approach, working to equip and train families holistically and empowering them to do the actual work.  Sustainability is ensured by making sure the families themselves are the major decision makers, and that the goals and labor is their own.

By providing a hand up and not a ‘hand out’, the families are able to work their way out of poverty with a profound and simple dignity. This is land, hope, and life made real through the dreams and hard work of twenty-five new Agros families!

In April of this year, we shared how the skills and hard work of the Guatemalan refugees living on the southern border of Chiapas, Mexico, were in stark contrast to the desperate need and injustice they have faced for generations (see previous blog post).

Today, four months later, this group of families coming from Los Pinos and neighboring community Zapaluta, are getting ready to purchase land for the first time in their lives.

Santa Fé Ajké, Spanish and Mam for “Our Holy Faith,” is the 36th Agros village, the 5th community in Mexico, and the first group to purchase land in a new region of Chiapas. The families preparing to make the move to their new land are predominately Mam and Jacalteco, originally from the Ixcan region of Guatemala, just over the Mexican border. During the civil war in Guatemala (1970s-1990s), violence spread throughout the countryside, burning homes and fields and killing innocent families all over the country.  As a result, many Guatemalan families fled to Mexico for refuge. While they found respite from the war, they have nevertheless struggled to survive amidst discrimination, racism, neglect, and extreme poverty.

Now — over 25 years later — the families making up Santa Fé Ajké are beginning a new chapter in their lives. Having carried their cultural knowledge across borders and generations, they are excited to have the opportunity to partner with Agros and search for, select, and soon own land where they will live, work, and raise their families in safety. Women talk of raising small animals and selling homemade bread and handicrafts. Men plan for new sustainable ways to grow diverse crops. Children are interested in continuing their education and learning trades. In this 247-acre community, children, women and men are dreaming of the new possibilities for the first time. Where fear and despair once took hold, they can now plan for the future.

We have some exciting developments in Agros Mexico right now with the opening of a new region in Chiapas.  Over the past year we have been working to assess the feasibility of working on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, to start new Agros communities with Guatemalan refugees who fled during the civil war to Mexico.  There are over 6,000 refugees who escaped to Mexico in the 1980s and have chosen to remain and become Mexican citizens.  Most live in poverty and suffer from discrimination for being both indigenous and Guatemalan.  Agros Mexico undertook a feasibility study and in the process identified dozens of potential groups with which we could work, to help the families break out of poverty through land ownership and the Agros model.

The first group that Agros will work with is in its final stages of the selection process, and a piece of land has been identified.  We are working through our village approval process and if all the key criteria are met will be starting this village in late August, including purchasing the land.  Twenty-five families who come from great suffering and turmoil will be given a new opportunity and new hope.

We have also been selected as finalists for the 2008 Global Development Marketplace competition through the World Bank, with a proposal based on the work to be started in this new region of Mexico.  The proposal is for $200,000 to help start two Agros communities with indigenous populations.  Out of the original 1,700 proposals they received, 100 organizations have been chosen to continue after a rigorous review of the applications by 200 development specialists.  Agros was one of them!

The Development Marketplace is a competitive grant program administered by the World Bank and supported by various partners that identify and fund innovative, early-stage projects with high potential for development impact.  Since its inception in 1998, DM has awarded about $40 million (US) to more than 1,000 projects through global, regional and country level marketplaces.  Using DM funding as a launching pad, many projects have gone on to scale up or replicate elsewhere.

The 2008 DM competition sought proposals on the theme of Sustainable Agriculture for Development with sub-themes that address agriculture as an engine of growth, agriculture as an instrument of poverty alleviation and agriculture as a provider of environmental services.  We will now submit a more detailed proposal and are invited to attend the Marketplace Event September 23-26 in Washington, D.C. where 20 organizations from the 100 finalists will be awarded grants.  Both Sergio Sanchez, our Agros Mexico Director, and myself will be attending.  You can see the other finalists here.

This is a time of great celebration here at Agros as we announce the beginning of two new villages, Villa Hortencia I in Guatemala, and Nuevas Esperanzas in Nicaragua. Over 150 families are now beginning a new life of hope and opportunity.

Agros Village #35 Nuevas Esperanzas, Nicaragua
This community, formerly known as El Naranjo, waited for years to have the opportunity to own  land.  Their primary sources of income and food came from growing basic grains on rented land and working as day laborers on sugarcane and coffee plantations.  Fathers and sons would leave their families behind for months to work in the plantations, struggling to provide enough income to survive.  After so many years of living in devastating poverty, these 36 families are now able to stay together throughout the year, learning new skills to develop agricultural business projects on land they will one day own.  Journeying through the Agros development process, these families will learn to diversify their crops and economic activities, building the necessary infrastructure to ensure growth.  In a way that just wasn’t possible before, they can now seize opportunities for literacy, healthcare, education, and economic sustainability.  You can read more about Nuevas Esperanzas here.

Agros Village #34 Villa Hortencia I, Guatemala
After decades of war, hunger, and profound struggle, one hundred and twenty Quiche families now have the opportunity to flourish.  The 36-year civil war in Guatemala was devastating for the villages in this region, leaving families marginalized, displaced, and forgotten. In 2006 the Guatemalan Land Fund gave these families rights to 688 acres of land in Villa Hortencia.  While this was a hopeful first step, the land they received was rocky, dry, and not very productive.  Lacking the necessary agricultural knowledge and support, the families continued to struggle.

Agros began working with the families in Villa Hortencia last June, exploring a variety of ways to provide assistance.  Last week the Agros Noemi committee approved the long-term support that will be used to provide agricultural training and community development, maximizing the potential of these families to work their way out of  poverty.  Click here to read more.

Agros International is pleased to welcome its new Director for Agros Honduras, Joel Martínez.

Joel Martínez Durón is a certified Agricultural Engineer with a Master’s Degree in ‘Generation of Development Projects’ and a background in Business Administration and Organizational Development. Joining Agros as the Executive Director of Agros Honduras, Joel’s twelve years of experience directing development projects in the field will greatly contribute to the families in Agros Honduras communities.

Prior to his role with Agros, Joel served as the Director of Program Development in Morzán Yoro for World Vision Honduras.  Joel led the strategic and operative planning process for the program, as well as comprehensive monitoring of the program’s impact.  He directed a team of field staff providing health, education, and economic development projects to the targeted population.

Joel was also responsible for administering the World Vision sponsorship program that generates 50% of the program’s funding. With his depth of experience and networking contacts relevant to the work of Agros, Joel will be a tremendous leader as the Honduras team continues to bring land, hope, and life to impoverished families in Honduras.

Welcome Joel!

The Agros Development Model enables entire communities to fundamentally break the cycle of poverty for generations to come. With the support of Agros, a group of families from Aduana Dos, Nicaragua, is writing a new chapter in a history previously marked by poverty and lack of opportunity. The following report was written by field staff in Nicaragua:

The families from Aduana Dos, Nicaragua, have displayed an impressive degree of leadership throughout their plantain project. Management skills, accountability, and decision-making have allowed them to grow higher quality crops. The success and growth is impressive.

During this project the families have demonstrated positivity and an entrepreneurial spirit. Seventy-five percent of the families are marketing their crops allowing them to generate more income than originally projected. The news about their success is spreading throughout the region and as a consequence, neighbor communities have started to grow plantains in their home gardens as well. In all of our countries the Agros model impacts not just the village where the model is implemented, but also in neighboring communities as well.

It is important to note how much the women in the community have been absolutely key in the success of this project. They leave their homes early in the morning to sell and market the products in neighboring villages.

“We are grateful to Agros for the opportunity of being part of this project. We have recovered our self-confidence. We can work our land, and most importantly have food to eat with our children.” – Audelys, Aduana Dos.

On June 2nd, 2008, Nathan Hawkins joined Agros as the new Service Team Coordinator. Nathan is originally from Minneapolis and has lived in Mexico, East Tennessee, and most recently New Orleans, where he helped with rebuilding efforts after hurricane Katrina. He met his wife Joy in Tijuana, and together they moved to Seattle on November 2007. We’re truly excited to have Nathan join us.

Quoting the words of Frederick Buechner, Nathan describes his vocational calling as an intersection between “the place where deep gladness and the world and deep hunger meet.” Nathan adds, “I truly believe one such intersection for me is this opportunity to serve with Agros. I am so grateful to be joining you. I look forward to developing friendships and serving diligently alongside everyone at Agros and the many partners Agros counts as friends.”

Tara E. Leung will be leaving us on June 13th to pursue a masters program in International Development at Tufts University in Boston. She has worked and served with passion, excellence, and commitment.

Our very best wishes to Tara and a warm welcome to Nathan!

Graduation from university is always an exciting time in anyone’s life. But try to imagine what it must feel like if you were not only the first one to graduate from your family, but also the first from your town? And then imagine that you took all of your classes in a second language, and even began to learn a third language during your years at university. The joy and excitement would be that much more.

This is exactly what happened for four young women and one young man from the Ixil on November 17, 2007. They walked across the stage in their caps and gowns and received their diplomas as professional technicians from the Universidad del Valle in Guatemala. In the audience were members of their families who had left the Ixil in the Guatemalan highlands at 3am that morning to make the trip. These young people had received scholarships from the University and other non-profit organizations to attend four years of schooling-two years to finish their high school degrees and then two more years to receive technical training in their choice of specialty. Three of them chose to focus on agroforestry techniques and the other two focused on tourism. All five plan to return to the Ixil to find jobs, continue studying and serve their communities.

Just months after I began working for Agros in 2003, these five youth won their scholarships and began their studies. They traveled 8 hours away from their families to the University, and to a whole new world. From their small villages to the city of Solola, from their world of speaking Ixil with their families to taking all their classes in Spanish, which is their second language. It was a tough transition. At times they wanted to just leave and return home. They had to have special tutors and take remedial classes when they fell behind in their classes. The first year was the hardest, but they made it. Since then, they’ve served as support to the 17 other youth from the Ixil who have also gotten scholarships in recent years. On November 17th they served as examples that it can be done. And they were so proud.

I had the great honor of attending their graduation ceremony in November. Sitting in the audience, I thought back to that first year when I visited them as they began their studies. I no longer saw the timid young people who were trying to find their place in the world. Now I saw five mature people, proud of their heritage, proud of their new skills, and excited about what life has in store for them. With dreams and hopes, and the tools to achieve them. What a blessing to witness this, and what a blessing they will be to their communities.

A group of us just returned from a deeply inspirational trip to Guatemala. The following is the first of several reports to come, and was written by Brooke Rufo Hill, the Agros Service & Education Manager.

The First Families Move to La Providencia, Guatemala.

I recently had the privilege to spend time alongside the staff of Agros Guatemala in the remote region of Barillas, visiting the Agros villages in that area. During this time we bumped along rugged roads to visit the established Agros villages of El Edén, Nueva Primavera, and Villa Linda, as well as the newest Agros community of La Providencia. It was an incredible privilege to witness the first families move onto this beautiful and productive piece of land.

The terrain is over 550 acres of lush fields with crops of coffee, cardamom, and sugar cane already growing; it has a rushing river and spilling waterfall to boot. La Providencia is truly a site to see — it exudes a sense of hope and prosperity.

The leaders of La Providencia greeted us when we arrived. Each of the men had smiles ear-to-ear — they were anxious to give us a tour of their new home and the fresh start of opportunity was in the air. We found ourselves crossing a rickety suspension bridge swaying over the river, bushwhacking our way through the coffee plants and overgrowth, and posing under the glorious waterfall for photos. During this two-hour tour, we were able to engage in valuable conversations with both the community leaders and the staff of Agros Guatemala.

One hundred families will make up this village located in the northwest of Guatemala. Almost a half of the families are now in the process of moving onto land; the rest of them will begin to move in early January. Agros Guatemala is working with a professional engineer and architect to help the community design their master plan for the village. In the meantime, the families are choosing temporary locations to place their homes. The day we visited, representatives of all the groups and families of La Providencia were there to receive their plot assignments so they can start planting corn now to have food for their families. Most families also already have members working on the coffee and cardamom harvests. For now the community’s focus is to harvest the crops, plant corn for their families’ food, and construct their temporary houses, as well as working toward overall community organization and integration of the families. The community has already formed their key committees and they are beginning to work on integrating the different groups into the one large community.

La Providencia — both the fertile land and the amazing people who will make up this new Agros community — is alive with a deep sense of hope and opportunity. After visiting La Providencia and spending time with the families and Agros Guatemala staff, I now have a clear understanding of why the Agros tagline is “Land. Hope. Life.”

Back in February I visited Matagalpa region of Nicaragua to see a new piece of property that we were considering buying for a new group of families. Several of these family members came with us to see the land for the first time. We walked all over the property until the sun went down. Just a month later Agros did buy this land for the new Agros village of San José. This past month I went back to visit this new community to see how they are doing after 6 months on their land, and after the recent Hurricane Felix that affected them so significantly. It was an incredible visit, walking the land again with the same families, but now seeing their crops and hearing from them all the work they have done to establish their new community.

In just six short months they have planted over eight acres of malanga (a tuber crop) that will be harvested in March for international export, improved their coffee crops (which they have already begun harvesting), built temporary homes, and have a giant corn harvest to provide for their food security for their families.

The Matagalpa villages were negatively impacted by Hurricane Felix as we reported in our blog several months ago. However, through the generosity of so many we were able to hire a doctor to attend to the families to address illnesses brought on by the excessive rain and conditions. Two new composting latrines were also built for the families of San José to prevent further illnesses. And the families were given support to replant their bean crops, which they plan to do at the end of November.

I also visited the Agros village of El Edén, and was equally impressed with all the work these families have done over the past nearly two years. They are preparing for their third coffee harvest, as well as caring for their plantains, passion fruit, cacao, sheep, cattle, and cabbage. The families now have running water at their homes and wash basins to store water and use for their families’ needs. They have a preschool in the community, and eleven adults are participating in an adult education course. They are also participating in a reforestation project Agros is doing in the Matagalpa region (including and beyond current Agros villages) through generous funding from the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation and the Atkinson Foundation.

Finally I visited with a new group of families, waiting to move forward as an Agros village and begin the process of becoming landowners themselves. They are anxious to have the land be purchased and begin planting as you can imagine. We spent time explaining the importance of the process Agros goes through to raise the necessary funding, as well as to select the right piece of land and the right families. We are nearing the end of these processes and once funding is complete, we will soon have a third Agros village in the Matagalpa region.

I’m not sure if it made the news in the States, but there has been a tropical depression over Central America for the past week, causing record amounts of rain. Many families and communities have been affected by flooding and their access getting cut off. No Agros villages have been flooded, but two here in Nicaragua are difficult to get into and out of now, due to the poor quality of their roads. This impacted my visit here over the past week, forcing us to hike in to both Norwich and Aduana Dos. In both cases we wondered if we could get in and back out, as the rivers crossing the roads continued to rise.  However, we persevered and it was well worth it as always.

In particular I’d like to focus on my visit to the village of Norwich, and the story of transformation that has taken place there.  The last time I was in Norwich was November 2006, at a time when the community was going through transition. The Agros staff had been working with the families for months to overcome a variety of social conflicts, as well as laying out a good production plan on their land in light of the challenges to get water to irrigate crops.  During my last visit we spent the time together talking through their doubts and frustrations, and seeking solutions of how they could successfully move forward with their community.

When we hiked into Norwich last Thursday, it was a different group of families waiting for us. Of course they were the same faces, but the attitudes and spirit of the community was completely different. They welcomed us with the banner their JWAV (Agros Journey With a Village) partners had brought them, and proceeded to spend their time talking to us about all their achievements over the past year and the ways God has been blessing their lives.

One of the men of the community, Carlos, sang us praise songs he had written himself, accompanied by youth from the community. Then they gave us tajadas for lunch, fried plantain chips made from the plantains they are growing on their land. They are now growing plantains, rice, sesame, and raising sheep and cattle. They have lots to do still to work towards paying their land and still face challenges of water for irrigation (which we hope drilling another well will solve). But they have made huge progress. And not only in their production, but in their spirits, their attitudes, and their willingness to work together and to see God’s blessing throughout it all. These families are a living example of the power of transformation that can take place through hard work, the love of God, and the constant, steady support Agros provides through a truly holistic development model.