Agros Blog

Without regard for cultural, linguistic or ethnic divisions, March 8th is a day we honor the vast social, political and economic achievements of women worldwide.  International Women’s Day first emerged in 1909 largely through the push of labor movements, but officially took the global stage when recognized by the UN in 1975 “to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.”

The women of Agros villages have played extraordinary roles in the development of their communities. Not only do they tend to the family’s crops, but they are also successfully raising their children, managing the home, leading community efforts, furthering their own education, and starting and growing other small businesses. The stories of women’s achievements in Agros villages are countless, but here are just a few of note:

• One woman, Petronilla, is determined to grow multiple income-generating projects and send her four daughters to school to learn to read and write (pursuits she could not achieve as an indigenous girl).
• Ten women in the village of Brisas del Volcán can be credited for having the vision and sheer determination to start, build and grow that village.
• Hundreds of women are advancing opportunity for their extended families by building ‘Women’s Community Banks’ across Agros villages.

Agros International has always recognized and supported the critical role of women in building and nurturing thriving communities, families, and individuals.

One example of this can be seen in the Agros model which ensures that women are equally recognized on the title of land ownership—both the husband and the wife’s name is on the land title, which is not always the case otherwise in the region. Owning land for the first time in their lives is a powerful thing, giving women a tremendous sense of personal pride; getting equal recognition and reward in the eyes of the law for their contributions is an important component to building equity in other areas of community development.

Today we also give pause to look ahead and recognize that there is so much untapped potential and opportunity still awaiting future generations of women.

Together, let’s help support these women’s efforts by providing them with access to resources and the opportunity to grow.  Please consider giving the women of Agros villages the gift of hope through a gift of:

• Women’s Small Business Loan
• Women’s Economic Initiatives Training
• Rabbits and A Flock of Chicks (for small business creation)
• New Mother & Baby Kit

Journey with a Village (JWAV) is an Agros International program that builds partnerships between rural villages in developing countries and businesses, churches, individuals and community groups that are committed to their support.  Members of the JWAV program are given the opportunity to visit the village they are supporting as part of an Agros “service team” trip.

Terry McNichols is part of an Agros JWAV program and just recently returned from a service team trip to El Salvador. Terry maintains a blog called “Grace and Gravity” and wrote about the recent trip to El Salvador. This was Terry’s fourth trip to this village and this time around was able to ask a group of women in the village what they would do if they “won the lottery“.

Here is what the women in the village had to say:

Monday, February 8, 2010

If You Won the Lottery….

By Terry McNichols

I wonder what you would answer if I were to ask you what you would do it you won the lottery.  What would you buy first?  Second?  Then what?  What would your other family members say they would choose?  On our trip to El Salvador, we invited the women of the community to come to a “conversation circle” and told them they could ask us anything and we would ask them questions.  Everyone was allowed to pass if they didn’t want to answer.  This would not have worked if we had tried this on one of our earlier visits to this community.  But by the time we had visited 3 or 4 times, we thought it was worth a try.

We were surprised at the turnout of women, old and young.  We kept adding chairs and enlarging our circle.  We asked them several questions and they asked us a few, such as how old we are and what we (women) do.  The women in this community haven’t had much to look forward to in the past other than having babies and working all the time,  and they were very interested in what we do in the world.  We were saddened to hear later that they really had a lot of questions they would have liked to ask us, but were shy.  Maybe by the next visit they will have gotten up the nerve to actually ask us.  They got a laugh out of our insistence that we really do look a lot better than we do when we come to visit!  They all are clean and neat and we are all in our REI zippable pants, work shirts, sweat running down our faces, hair straggly, no makeup.  We aren’t used to the heat and have a hard time keeping our “looks” intact!  It was fun to show them a couple of pictures of ourselves actually looking nicer!

One answer that made us sad was the question “What do you do for fun?”  They talked about a Patron Saints Festival in February.  But “what do you do for fun in a normal week?”  The answer?  “Nothing.  We work all the time except when you come to visit!”  They really couldn’t come up with the concept of “free time.”

But the big question was reworded from the lottery to “What would you do if you had a whole lot of money all at once?”  After a long pause, one of the braver women said, “I would buy enough food for my children and family.”  Another said “I would pay off our land.”  “What else?” we asked.  Nothing.  Nothing at all.

I am ashamed of our wealth at times like this.  These families lost 30% of their beans and 70% of their corn crop in Hurricane Ida.  These are their main food crops.  We raised money to help Agros make sure they have food supplies until their crops recover.

I do recognize that there are many in our own country who also do not have enough to eat.  But most of us would have an entire “wish list” of things that we would name were we asked the lottery question!  And enough food for our families wouldn’t even make the list!

Here are a few photos from the trip:

At Agros we depend on volunteers to help our office run smoothly and help ensure we are achieving our mission of ending rural poverty in Central America and Mexico. Over this past year we have had many wonderful and capable volunteers. These folks have come from varying backgrounds and all have offered us so much. This year we would like to honor three  volunteers for providing Agros with outstanding service.

Jenna Swalin began volunteering with Agros in February of 2009. She first learned about Agros while researching different NGOs in the Seattle area and was impressed by the Agros development model and the strength of the Marketing and Communications Department. In the Communications Department, she worked on expanding Agros’ presence on social networking channels and helped with the development and production of other communications pieces including the newsletters and blog entries. When asked what she enjoyed most about her work at Agros Jenna responded, “There are so many amazing and inspirational stories of change, of families that have transformed their lives through working with Agros. Having the opportunity to learn those stories and to convey them to the public was a blessing.” Jenna has just recently returned from Argentina and is looking for work similar to what she has done for Agros.

Alex Richey learned about Agros through a family member and after some research, he found that by volunteering at Agros he would be able to learn more about Latin American culture and help those who are living in poverty. Alex began volunteering at our reception desk in September of 2009. He also helped the Development staff with various tasks. He most enjoyed helping with preparations for the Tierras de Vida fundraiser. When asked what his greatest reward from working with Agros was, he responded, “The people I met. Agros is a collection of innovative, brilliant people, and the company demonstrates what individuals can do to alleviate poverty in Central America.” Alex is currently teaching math to young people in Honduras, and his Agros experience reminds him how much he as an individual can help those that are less fortunate.

Arun Thomas learned about Agros through an enthusiastic presentation of an Agros Journey with a Village (JWAV) trip during a short-term mission introduction at University Presbyterian that he and his wife attended in 2001. In the fall of 2003, Arun and his wife had the opportunity to go on a service team trip to La Esperanza in Guatemala. They enjoyed the experience so much they returned to La Esperanza 6 times within in the following 4 years.  As a result of Arun’s extensive experience with Agros Service Teams and given his background with computers, he volunteered to develop and manage TeamAgros.net, the website/database Agros uses to manage all individual traveler and team specific information.  Arun also participated as a “Champion” for the Agros village of San Diego Tenango in El Salvador and he helped build relationships with that village which he felt was a little more difficult due to the different dynamics between Agros and the villagers. Arun appreciates the long-term sustainable approach Agros takes to development. Arun shares, “The relationships with the villagers and other team members are what keep us going. I am reminded every time that God is at work in peoples lives, whatever their circumstances are; and that he wants us to encourage one another–I feel the villagers encourage us to be more thankful for what we have materially and to exhort us to hope for what we can have relationally with God and with each other.”

Thank you  Jenna, Alex, and Arun… and to all Agros volunteers working to serve the poor with such passion and generosity.

Many of you have subscribed to receive the most recent Agros blog posts by email.  Unfortunately, the blog subscription system developed a bug that kept us from pushing out blog posts on a timely basis.

This bug has been fixed, and we will resume sending blog posts to you on a more regular basis.

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.

Joel Martinez, the director of Agros Honduras, gazed at Don Rito, a 75-year old man who had travelled 4 hours from his home near Santa Barbara to the Agros Honduras headquarters in San Pedro Sula. The coffee that Nohemy Funez, the Agros Human Development officer, had offered to Don Rito and his travelling companion, Don Ines, sat between them.

They had come with a proposition. Don Rito had heard from the Agros villagers in nearby Achotales that Agros helps poor people get land, and Don Rito and Don Ines had the perfect plot of land, on the side of a mountain. He also had five families who were ready to create a community and farm it. They had taken the name of Montañita. “It’s beautiful land,” Don Rito said, “You need to see it.” He and the five families were negotiating with the widow who owned it, he said. She was ready to sell to them. What’s more, he added, “We five families have been organized for some time. We are committed to one another, and to this project.” They only needed the money, but no one would lend it to them. Could Agros do for them what they had done for the people of Achotales?

Joel looked at him again. Typically, Agros works with the families first, and gathers a large group. Nohemy and Joel do workshops with the group, which is usually larger than it will end up being. Families drop out—the cost of working together is great, and the commitment gets tested by the informal values of Agros in the field: “Trabajo, trabajo, y mas trabajo”—work, work, and more work. Once the group has self-selected and coalesced, and assuming that Agros has gathered the necessary funds, the group looks for land, with Agros’ technical and financial support. That’s how Agros does things.

Don Rito, wrinkled by years of working fields in the hot sun, convinced of his mission, gazed back at Joel and Nohemy, who had brought the two men to see Joel. Don Rito clearly was a man with a vision.

The man across from him was a man with a problem.

Almost two years ago, Joel and Agros staff in Seattle had convinced a group of supporters to back Joel’s own vision: to combine campesinos—landless rural farmers, day laborers—with people who had moved from the countryside to the Los Bordos area of San Pedro Sula, where they lived in what one well-travelled member of that group had called “the worst slums I have ever seen.” The supporters came from all over the Pacific Northwest: Lake Grove Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon was joined by a group of friends from Bellevue, Washington and Ludeman Capital Management in Bellingham, WA. Together, they pledged the support that would be needed for five years of a new village to fit Joel’s vision.

Now that those donors had backed Joel’s idea, he was having trouble getting the right group together for the new village. Agros had tried to place these urban poor into the rural communities, but the fit was difficult. Urban poor are used to having cash and access to quick income; the rural poor work on a different economy, with slower income payouts. Even though they came from the same area of Honduras, there were cultural differences, and—while there had been some successes over the two years, and a lot of lessons learned—the long-term, mutual commitments that make Agros villages possible were hard to find. Joel promised Don Rito that he would look into his idea, and sent him on his way. It’s not the way we do things, he thought. We need to know the people first, without the pressure of a pending land purchase.

Don Rito went home encouraged. He told the Montañeros how well they had been treated: “You should have seen it. The Agros people gave us coffee and a little bread,” he said, “They payed for a taxi to take Don Ines and I to the bus.” Don Rito was convinced that Joel would see what they saw.

Joel was not convinced. Still, he did some networking. He spoke with the mayor of Santa Barbara, who confirmed that the Montañeros had been cooperating on projects for some time, and added that they were trustworthy and had a good reputation. Joel and Nohemy began working with the group. They introduced them to some of the families from Los Bordos slums, who were interested in returning to the land. The families talked with each other, shared their dreams for themselves and their children, and offered each other evidence of their willingness to work hard to see those dreams come true. They agreed to work together.

On the day that the Montañeros—now considerably larger in number– took Joel to look at the land, they were trying hard to be judicious: “He has to make up his own mind,” they told themselves. The more they walked the land together, the more excited Joel became. In fact, Don Rito pointed out later, “Joel was more enthusiastic than we were.”

“But there is no water,” Joel pointed out, “there has to be water, for crop irrigation and for you to use in the new homes on the land.” Together, they searched every inch of the mountainous terrain for water. They found– nothing. That’s also not how Agros does things. The land needs to have water.

A Montañero named Justiniano had a small plot of land with a spring, he said, but it was far away. The Montañeros began negotiating for the access rights they would need to get Justiniano‘s water to their fields. As far as household water for future homes on the land, the Monañeros already had a solution. Four years previous, they had obtained water for their nearby homes from an Austrian non-profit called Agua es Vida. Agros could work with them to get household water for any new home construction on the land.

The Montañeros overcame each obstacle in their way, one by one, until the day came when Agros bought the land, and they signed their promissory notes for their plots. Joel told them later, “You were like Caleb and Joshua from the Bible. Where others saw giants in the land and were afraid, you saw only the promised land.”

On January 14, an unseasonably cold day filled with mist and drizzle, Joel brought Barry Rowan, the leader of the Bellevue group of donors, to meet Don Rito and the rest of the families and to walk the land together. The three visionaries met on that mountainside for the first time: An Agros country director who had dreamed of creating a path of opportunity for reverse migration from the slums to a sustainable life, a group of Americans who had backed the idea and were waiting to see it happen, and a group of landless rural and urban poor who had long dreamed of owning their own land.

January 14 was an important day for the Montañeros: The plan for the equal division of family plots had arrived, and they were going to walk the staked-out area, showing each family the beginning of their personal vision came to reality. Families from Los Bordos were already living on the property, in temporary housing, and all of the families had cleared the land, planted corn for food security, and were about to plant their first long-term cash crop of coffee.

This corner of Honduras has three Agros villages of committed families, each with their own visions coming to life, supported by an in-country staff of nationals who have a vision for their people and their country, backed by donors who know a sustainable premise when they see one.

The visions come together, and the reality emerges out of the mist.

It IS how we do things.

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.

A recent article from Yahoo News México, discussed a crisis in the rural economy of México. Farmers in rural México have seen their purchasing power decrease by 44 percent. This has affected their ability to buy basic goods such as food, clothing, and medicine. This decrease in purchasing power has caused many in rural communities to migrate to the cities in search of higher paying jobs. The Mexican government has tried to improve the situation in rural areas by issuing families monthly allowances but this unfortunately has not helped improve the situation.

While issuing monthly allowances will help the rural poor of México in the short-term, it will do nothing to alleviate poverty in the long-term. If people are living hand to mouth and are not given opportunities to invest in their families and their communities they will remain poor.

Agros seeks to end poverty by providing farmers and villagers with the necessary tools to build strong, functioning rural economies. Giving people the tools to create jobs for themselves is just one way in which Agros helps whole villages break out of the cycle of poverty.

Agros works in Chiapas, México and the villages there have had a very positive and successful relationship with Agros. Agros México utilizes a farmer centric approach to sustainable rural development and it may help reverse the situation taking place in rural México.

Here in the US we can all push for rural economic development policies that address the deep rooted problems that cause inefficiencies in these markets and ultimately subject millions to an existence of grinding poverty.

We are happy to announce that Agros International supporters helped us meet our year end challenge to raise $25,000 in general support!

With only a few weeks left in 2009 a generous donor issued a matching challenge to Agros – offering to match year-end gifts dollar for dollar, up to $25,000! We’re thrilled to announce YOU did it!

We’d like to thank our matching donor and his family, and everyone who helped us meet this latest challenge. What a great way to start the new year!

Thank you!

The following is from Nathan Hawkins, our Service Team Program Manager:

Hearing about the always powerful, sometimes stretching, often life-changing experiences people have while visiting Agros villages is one the most rewarding aspects of my role as the Agros Service Team Program Manager.

I will never forget the amazing impact an Agros Service Team had on one of the first team leaders I had the pleasure of working with when I first started with Agros.  The transformation was palpable and it affirmed for me the Agros values of participation and relationships.

Visiting an Agros village is an act of solidarity.  When one group steps outside of their comfort zone and another welcomes them into theirs, each group is affirming the value of the other: appreciating, validating, and encouraging.  The results are more than partnership; they include collaboration, and the potential for mutual transformation in the context of relationship.

Participation and fostering relationships are among Agros’ core values because we recognize them as the means to and context for sustainable transformational development.

Recently, I enjoyed a conversation with a leader from another development organization about the value of partners visiting Agros villages.  We both recognize the complexities involved and understand that for various reasons, fewer development organizations facilitate or even allow partners to visit where their investment is at work.  My friend appreciated with me the distinctiveness of Agros’ Development Model; he observed that because of our holistic approach, “Agros’ model includes tremendous opportunities for everyone involved.”

The vision of the Agros Service Team program is “to provide an opportunity to serve that transforms lives through life-giving relationships.”  Two of our explicit goals are to build and nurture relationships that mutually encourage one another, and the bonds that are formed are able to improve lives beyond material development.   In our trainings, we point out that transformation is not limited to one side or another of an Agros partnership.  By emphasizing mutuality, we recognize how we all benefit by participating.

I love when returning Service Team members share stories of transformation. If you’ve been impacted by an Agros Service Team experience, would you be willing to share in the comments section of this blog what the impact has meant to you?

“It’s because of you! All of you!” Tomasa exclaims, peering into our video camera as if one born to beam before a waiting audience.

Moments earlier she’d described Agros, and partners like you who help us, as “a very fine meal, inviting us to the feast of our lives.”  How can it be that this woman, who years before had been shot and left to bleed while witnessing her two daughter’s deaths at the hands of her would-be killers during the civil war in Guatemala, could now beam with a confident bearing defying so many brutal moments?

The answer, I think, is found in the following account from Jacob Johnson, a dear friend of mine and to many of you, now studying in Argentina on a Rotary Fellowship after nearly two years living among Guatemala’s Ixil (pronounced ‘eesheel’) Indians, listening and recording their stories, including Tomasa’s:

“Hope was one of the few things left to Tomasa following the civil war that ravaged her people in the 1980s.  As bullets tore into her arm one terrible day in 1982, she witnessed the cold-blooded murder of two of her daughters while a third, struggling to escape, was kidnapped.  Surviving her wounds, Tomasa and her family also lost all their few physical possessions that brutal day.  Fleeing in grief she found her husband and remaining children, and spent the next seven years hiding out in the mountains.

Once they were finally resettled in their village, life remained an uphill struggle for survival as they tried to rebuild their lives while living under a nylon tarp.  They scraped by, as Tomasa’s war wounds kept her from working the fields as she always had since the time she was a little girl.

The family fought on in the hope that their circumstances would somehow improve, fighting off rounds of illness while barely eking out enough to eat.  Despite the hardships, Tomasa turned her sorrow into a spirit of gratitude.

Overflowing gratitude, a hallmark of her daily life which she now offers to Agros and those who support this ministry, since the day she first heard of their work among her people.  Through Agros’ work, all in her village of Batzchocolá now live more comfortably with a view to the future that overflows.

She tells me as we lean over her drying coffee harvest  “Agros is an excellent thing for us.  Excellent!  It is like looking at something delicious that you’re about to eat, something pleasant, bringing happiness with each bite.  It is something great.  You all have done wonders!”

Witnessing the contrast between her present life and the past horrors she’d just shared with me; a contrast made startling by a partnership of relentless hope; was a precious moment of clarity: this gratitude and generosity of grace, regardless of circumstance, is what it means to have life in abundance.”

To hear Tomasa’s story watch the short Agros video, “Restoring Lives”.

As we come into this New Year, we all, staff and villagers alike, know that without you, our faithful donors, the waiting “Tomasas” of the world will not be served, nor be able to tell us as she has of the great feast of life, the banquet table daily serving the main course of Hope, Gratitude and consequent Generosity. May your table overflow with extra portions of gratitude as you look back on 2009, and look forward towards 2010, knowing you’ve made a difference among thousands of the rural poor in Central America & Mexico…because, “Its because of you! All of you!”

With thanks to a very generous donor, we’re excited to share that from now until December 31st, every dollar you donate to Agros – up to $25,000 in general fund giving – will be matched dollar for dollar!

Whether you prefer to make a general donation online, donate by phone, donate by mail, or give a gift in honor of someone you love from the Agros One Seed Alternative Gift Catalog – your gift will be doubled! Your gift to support the work of Agros will go far to make a lasting difference in the lives of the rural poor – from helping provide loans for small agricultural businesses and women’s enterprises, seed for crops, or support for in-country professionals that provide hands on training in agronomy, health and hygiene practices and human development.

Here are just a few examples of how far a gift can go in the countries where we work, and how taking advantage of this matching opportunity can double your impact:

• A $1000 gift is enough to provide one acre of land, the most effective tool for breaking the cycle of poverty. With this match, your gift has the potential to provide two acres of land for a community!

• A $500 gift can supply a fuel-efficient stove and composting latrine for a family.
  With this match, your gift could provide two families with a family health package!

• A gift of $250 can secure a water pump and 100 feet of irrigation piping.
  With this match, your gift could provide two valuable irrigation systems!

• A gift of $100 can provide two women with small business loans.
  With this match, your gift could provide four women with funds to start their new businesses!

Please consider going above and beyond what you might normally give to empower countless families in Mexico and Central America to break free from the cycle of poverty -  to be self-sustaining, and have the freedom to dream again.

Whatever you’re able to give, we thank you for choosing to make such an impact this year and helping Agros finish the year strong!

P.S. – If you plan to make a gift from the Agros One Seed catalog and you’d like us to send your honoree a gift card for the Christmas holiday, please be sure to order your gift by Monday, December 21st to ensure it arrives on time.

Generosity in any form is a powerful force for good in the world… this holiday season, how will your generosity impact others?

This year, consider giving the most unexpected and meaningful gifts from the Agros One Seed Alternative Gift Catalog. Purchase gifts in honor of those you love and transform lives at the same time… One Seed, One Life, One Village at a Time!

The gifts in the One Seed catalog represent the essential elements of holistic development Agros employs to empower families to work their way out of poverty. Choose from a host of meaningful gifts that support our work:

• Land & Farming (an acre of land or a farmer’s toolkit)
• Village Housing & Infrastructure (a house or household wash basin)
• Animal Husbandry (a cow, a flock of chicks, or a goat)
• Women, Families & Villages (a women’s small business loan)
• Education & Training (business training or a child’s school supplies)

Your gift is a tax-deductible donation to Agros and will go far to empower families across Central America and Mexico by supporting actual projects underway in Agros villages. It’s so easy – here’s how it works:

1. Go to the Agros One Seed Alternative Gift Catalog website.
2. Select a gift of meaning for your loved one.
3. Choose how to send your gift card – via email or post mail.

Remember, you can purchase your gifts anytime, and choose to email or print a custom gift card yourself.

However, if you would like Agros to send a card to your gift recipient to arrive by Christmas, we’ll need to receive your order by Friday, December 18th in order to ensure it arrives on time.

Make your gift today and transform lives tomorrow!

Agros International is committed to breaking the cycle of poverty for the rural poor in Central America and Mexico. Poverty, in our view, is the result of broken relationships and in order to break the cycle of poverty in all its forms these broken relationships need to be mended. Agros addresses these issues by applying a development model that is holistic, sustainable, and focused on long-term results. And while we currently focus our work helping families in Mexico and Central America, we know that poverty is a condition persistent in all regions of the world, in both rural and urban settings, and we want to see it come to an end globally.

We know that you care about ending poverty, too. So we encourage you to see the film ‘The End of Poverty?’, directed by Philippe Diaz and narrated by Martin Sheen. It is not often that a documentary allows such a vivid window into the lives of the poor and the root causes of poverty. This movie promises to expose poverty for what it is and inspire us all to take some form of action. Please join us in the fight against poverty.

For those of you in the Seattle metro area, ‘The End of Poverty?’ premieres today in downtown Seattle at the Regal Meridian 16 at 11:40am, 2:10pm, 4:40pm, 7:50pm, and 10:30pm. Also, Philippe Diaz the director will be holding a Q&A session at tonight’s 4:40pm and 7:50pm showings. If you can’t make the premiere tonight, it will be playing through the week.

• Visit the film’s website to learn where the film is playing near you.

• Don’t see it available in your metro area? Bring the film to your town now.

Thanks for helping to spread the word about this film and its important message to end the plight of poverty.

Bill Gates, founder of the Gates Foundation, recently gave his first major public address on the topic of agriculture development at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa. Gates discussed the need for the development of agricultural systems that incorporate productivity gains and sustainability.

Gates finished his address with a call for a more farmer-centered and holistic approach to agricultural development, saying,“Poor farmers are not a problem to be solved; they are the solution – the best answer for a world that is fighting hunger and poverty, and trying to feed a growing population. If farmers can get what they need to feed their families and sell their surplus, hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people can build themselves a better life.”

Not surprisingly, Gates highlighted Africa as a region in need of agriculture development. But another region in critical need of agriculture development is right here in our own backyard, Mexico and Central America, home to 21 million impoverished citizens.  Most of this poverty stems from inequalities in land distribution. Many farmers in Mexico and Central America have no land to work because of decades of policies denying them access and rights to land. Farmers in Mexico and Central America like farmers in Africa need resources and tools that will allow them to apply a holistic approach to their development in order to break the cycle of poverty.

Agros International agrees wholeheartedly with Gates that poor farmers are not a problem to be solved, but rather they are the solution. Agros is in the business of helping rural farming communities work themselves out of poverty. The Agros development model bridges the need for technological solutions with the need for true sustainability.

Land is a cornerstone of the Agros development model. Once rural families have access to land, Agros agronomists assist them with crop development techniques that take advantage of local conditions, markets, and necessary inputs. Agros works with community members to develop agriculture systems in the village that will be used long after Agros departs.

Not long thereafter, Agros village members become the teachers as they impart that same knowledge to other villages in the region, and to their children, who continue the practice of farming in a less destructive, more sustainable way.

The same applies for Agros holistic community development work in a village.  The goal is to leave behind a thriving, sustainable community free of poverty for generations to come.

Agros’ development model is proven to work. When leaders in the development field talk about the need to find technological yet sustainable solutions to agriculture development, we offer the Agros development model as an example of success that could be applied across geographies.

Fair warning: this is long!  However this post is also an attempt to answer two fundamental question at the heart of everything we do:

“What is poverty… and… what is Agros doing to help?”

(Note: if you want the short answer, then watch this video!)

These are basic questions we hear all the time.  Whether it’s on Oprah or at a U2 concert, people hear the statistics, see the pictures, and may even weep at the stories of “the poor”, but with so many approaches and definitions and attempts to help, what does it mean to really end poverty?

The first questions that often come up are numeric in nature: “How many people are poor?”  “How much money do they make?”  “How much money are you asking me to give in order to help?”

Answers are of course numerous.

For example, in terms of the numbers and economic indicators, the World Bank estimates that approximately 3 billion people fall under the international poverty line of $2.50 a day.

In other words, according to the World Bank, almost half of the planet lives in poverty.

Think about that.  Half the planet.

(And in Central America specifically, where Agros works, more than 60% live in poverty.)

But what is poverty?

Poverty is a complex phenomenon, no doubt.  Income is an important component, but access to healthcare, education, employment, sanitation, and clean water also have a tremendous impact on quality of life.

Intangible factors–including discrimination, empowerment, community support, or having a sense of basic worth and dignity are hard to measure, but are all critical determinants of poverty.

At Agros, we have seen that poverty affects the whole person within entire communities.  It’s impossible to isolate single factors that affect just individuals. Therefore, our approach and definition of poverty is holistic.

Agros defines poverty as ‘broken relationships’. We use this definition to create a basis to understand and interact with the multiple dimensions of poverty.

What does this mean?

For the poor (and particularly the rural poor), all of the fundamental connections and relationships that make up a sustainable way of life are damaged or destroyed. This results in the destruction of access to basic community systems, opportunities, and material resources, but also the erosion and eradication of human dignity and worth.

When we define poverty as broken relationships, we’re not speaking in platitudes.

You can measure and quantify the systemic and pervasive effects of broken relationships through per capita poverty statistics including life expectancy, undernourishment, unemployment rates and literacy rates.

Further, the fundamental failures of local systems, infrastructure, and services are exacerbated when village-level relationships with local and national municipalities and institutions break down, resulting in little or no access to education, healthcare, credit, or sustainable employment opportunities.  The resulting desperation is an underlying cause of families being forced apart for months and years to work in urban areas, distant plantations, or immigrating to find work in other countries.

You can measure these broken relationships in the amount of time family members spend broken apart as one or more attempt to migrate for hard-to-find work.

If these broken relationships can be measured, what does this look like in human terms?

Imagine: that your husband and 13 year-old son spend four months of the year working on a coffee plantation hundreds of miles away for extremely low wages. You are left alone during these months, hungry and desperate to provide for the remaining children. You have no access to public services or clean water, and hunger is pervasive.

Imagine: You stumble into a dirt-floor shack after a day of back-wrenching labor. Your work for the day has earned you less than a dollar to feed a family of four children.  You depend on agriculture for your survival and livelihood, but do not own land of your own, so are forced to rent a small parcel of hard, dry land to eke out a meager crop of corn and beans. You go to sleep at night listening to your children crying themselves to sleep with hunger.  The despair is crushing.

Imagine: A barefoot child walks for miles to collect water and firewood for the family. She has never been to school, never owned a book, never been taught to write her name. If she becomes ill, access to medical care is non-existent or limited. There is nothing in her future but more of the same – hopelessness created by the cycle of extreme poverty.

At Agros we see firsthand the impact of broken relationships within extreme poverty.  But most importantly, we also see that these relationships can be restored.

We’ve learned, however, that in seeking to truly eradicate poverty you cannot reduce the solutions  to just the individual or even family level.  To create true, lasting transformation it is critical to address how the causes of extreme poverty stretch across communities and destroy entire generations.

Given all of the above, the basic question that drives everything we do at Agros is this:  what does is take for an entire community to lift themselves out of poverty?

This is the internal question we ask ourselves in response to the more basic question of “how can you help?”

Our answer is in five parts.  Five components, really.

The Agros development model is designed to restore the multiple broken connections between individuals and their communities, empowering them to build back both economic prosperity and human dignity.  We do this through a unique, integrated, holistic model that encompasses five core components:

Community Organization
Help families define a vision for a new community and develop the local leadership required to create a self-sustaining, thriving community.

Land Ownership
Work with families to identify and purchase agricultural land on credit and use their payments to purchase land for other new communities.

Community Education & Training
Create opportunities for adequate healthcare, education, adult literacy and spiritual growth.

Housing & Infrastructure
Implement community and individual construction projects such as houses, schools, irrigation systems, latrines, infrastructure and community centers.

Sustainable Economic Growth
Develop agricultural production and support income-generating activities through microenterprise loans and technical training.

These five components form an integrated approach that we call 360° development. The components are based on this notion of enabling communities to restore for themselves the basic relationships that make up a healthy, thriving, sustainable community.

Economic considerations are key–income, business development, loans and credit:  But looking holistically–empowering women, establishing a community leadership structure, literacy, family planning, access to healthcare, and most importantly–restoring basic human dignity… these are all important parts of the whole process.

And you’ll notice that while these are issues that people in “developed” nations strive to answer, they are nevertheless human issues and must be addressed in even the most remote, rural, impoverished village.

And while we take a holistic, community-based approach, we believe that every life has worth, and every family matters. And rather than base our work exclusively on an assessment of needs, our approach seeks to build on the values, dreams, and resources of the families themselves.

You see, at the heart of all of this, we do not believe the poor are a problem to be solved.  We believe that have what it takes to list themselves out of poverty.

So we don’t work with a village community by imposing a “development program” based on top-down, theoretical solutions. Instead, we work through a participatory, values-based planning process that results in a master plan being created by the community themselves.  This plan will encompass the five components of the Agros model, but the specifics of implementation will be created by the families themselves.

And it takes time.  There is no easy solution to generations of extreme poverty.  However, by empowering villagers to identify, enhance, and grow their own capacity for achievement, social, environmental, and economic sustainability for everyone in the village is ensured.

An Agros village is highly organized, socially supportive, commercially competitive and environmentally sound.  As families thrive under new conditions of stability and security, they are able to develop agricultural businesses; develop and own assets; establish new pathways to education and healthcare; and forge partnerships with other organizations and government municipalities.

All of these integrated benefits and experiences result in the transformation of a community, and are passed on to the next generation.

After living in so many generations of poverty characterized by a fundamental degradation of human dignity, as families are given the necessary training, support, and capital to build a better future, not only is poverty alleviated, but basic human dignity is restored for everyone involved.

Want to see what this looks like? Watch this video!

Agros is in the business of poverty eradication for the long-term. We do not believe in simple, easy ‘fixes’ to complex problems. Our model provides a framework in which communities are capable of indefinitely maintaining their productivity and usefulness to society.

The vision and impact of Agros’ work is designed to end rural poverty across entire rural villages and through multiple generations.  And with 40 village projects across five countries, this is happening… one village at a time!

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.

We are fond of technological solutions in the developed world. After all, they seem to have gotten us developed.

The international economist Jeffrey Sachs, for instance, argues that we don’t have to live with 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day, that the poor do not have to “always be with you.” His excellent book “The End of Poverty” describes a modest proposal for ending poverty in this millennium. It calls for a restructuring of developing world debt, a new way of investment and trade between the developed and the under-developed nations, and a new system of handling aid. These excellent economic proposals were adopted in the year 2000 by the member nations of the UN as the “The Millennium Development Goals.” The goal is to end poverty by 2015.

And Jeffrey Sachs is right: It does not cost much to end poverty. In dollars, pounds, or pesos, that is. The cost is to our way of thinking and our way of living.

This is why I love Agros: We recognize that ending poverty requires nothing less than transformation, and we will not settle for anything less than that. The villagers we work with are told upfront that this will not be an easy road, and later, they report to us that the really hard work was what they had to do in their hearts. The donors we work with are told upfront that international rural development work is long-term, and not a smooth upward curve. The staff knows that we are working long term, and that the true wealth for a village lies in the dignity and hope of the villagers themselves.

Along the way, everyone is transformed. There is a palpable and observable difference between villagers in the first two years and villagers who have made their first land payment. There is a palpable and observable difference between the donor partners who began by just wanting to donate money, and end up in awe of what the villagers are able to achieve through their own planning, leadership, and hard work. And when you hear the staff talk about what motivates them to continue their work, you hear their respect for the villagers who have given themselves to transformation.

On November 7, here in Seattle, we heard from Teresa Sanchez, a woman whose family survived the brutal civil wars of Guatemala, who grew up in the Agros village of Cajixay, took herself through secondary school and university, and has returned to the Ixil region of Guatemala to work as an agricultural specialist for Agros villages. We heard a story of transformation.

Agros people know the power of planning and hard work. We also know that without real, human transformation, hard work and sound economics is just spent labor and good ideas.

Last week we were privileged to have three guests with us here in our Seattle office, joining us for our annual fundraising event, Tierras de Vida.  Visiting were Sergio Sanchez, our Agros Mexico Director, Diego Bernal, Productive Projects Coordinator in Cotzal, Guatemala, and Teresa Sanchez, Agros villager and staff, who currently works as a Productive Projects Promoter in the Ixil region of Guatemala.

It has been a pleasure hosting Sergio, Diego and Teresa here in the Rainy City as they met with partners, shared their stories at Tierras de Vida and elsewhere, and reminded us of the vastness of the Agros family of villagers, partners, staff, volunteers and so many others.

At first glance, many see Agros as a team of 17 hard-working staff here in the Seattle office.  What is sometimes harder to see is that the Agros family is much bigger.  In the five countries in which we work, Agros utilizes the skills, experiences and wisdom of over 60 staff native to the regions in which they serve.

Agros is fortunate to count on the cultural sensitivity, local knowledge and understanding found in our in-country staff, and Sergio, Diego and Teresa are no exception.  Combined, they have decades of experience in participatory rural development and indigenous populations, which they apply to empower hundreds of families across Central America and Mexico to find effective solutions that break the cycle of poverty.

This week, Sergio, Diego and Teresa began their journey back home to Mexico and Guatemala, bringing back with them stories and best wishes from all of those that were touched by their visit.  We will miss them for their generosity as they shared about the beauty and the suffering experienced in their countries, for their grace as they spoke honestly and from the heart before nearly 400 people Saturday night, and for their gratitude as they gave thanks for all the lives and communities that have been transformed by the Agros Model.

We will miss them, but we are encouraged by their visit and touched by how, despite the differences in our cultures, countries and customs, we are always united in a shared purpose.

As Juan from San José, Nicaragua put it so well in this video shown at Tierras de Vida, the Agros family is just that—we are “amor” for one another.

On behalf of all of us at Agros International, thank you for your presence and generosity at the 2009 Tierras de Vida event!

While many were moved by Teresa Sanchez Lopez’s presentation, it was also a great honor for Teresa to be able to share her story with you. She later told staff, with tears flowing, how much the support and encouragement of all those in attendance meant to her.

Teresa will never forget your generosity, and neither will we. Quite simply, Agros exists because of your care and support, and so all of us say – ¡Mil Gracias!

At Agros we care a great deal about communicating and sharing this work with clarity and excellence. Our doors are always open to feedback and input from you, and so to that end, for those who were able to attend could you take just a few minutes and fill out this online survey on how we might improve?

Many also asked after the event how they might become more involved with the Agros mission. Here are a few simple ways you can deepen your involvement with Agros:

• Did you enjoy the video at the event? Click here to watch it again and share it with your friends!
• Subscribe to the Agros blog to receive regular updates on our work.
• Join our Facebook Fan and Cause pages, and follow our Twitter updates.
• As the holidays are fast approaching, spread the word about the Agros One Seed alternative gift catalog to your friends and family.
• Host an Agros 101 introduction for your friends – contact us for more info!

As Teresa shared on Saturday, “without dreams you will die.” Thank you for supporting the dreams of so many families working their way out of poverty across Central America and Mexico.