Agros Blog

This is the first installment of what we hope will be a continuing series, Sharing Their Voices, which will highlight some of  the families living in Agros communities. These blogs will share the journeys that they have taken, as well as the impact that Agros has had on their lives, in their own words.  We hope this will give you a glimpse into their lives and help you better understand the work that we do in partnership with them.

Carlos Roberto and his wife Arely are members of the Agros community Bella Vista, Honduras where they live with their three sons: William, Carlos and Luis. Bella Vista was founded in September 2009 and was the fourth Agros community to launch in Honduras.

Prior to partnering with Agros, the family lived in a borrowed house with no latrine and had to rely on Carlos’ family for support. Like most families in the area where they lived, they did not own their own plot of land. Yet, their livelihood was contingent on their cultivation of basic grains so they had no other option but to plant crops on remote land in order to sustain themselves.

Their circumstances were very difficult but Carlos dreamed of someday growing coffee – a crop that he knew a great deal about – on a plot of his own land. In faith, Carlos planted almost two acres of coffee, a long-term crop that requires 3-5 years for the first harvest, even though he did not own his land and the results were uncertain.

Since Carlos and Arely partnered with Agros, their lives have changed drastically. Within the first year and a half of receiving a plot of land,Carlos was able to plant his crops – which included transplanting the coffee seedlings he had planted in the hopes of a better future – and began harvesting them that upcoming season. The family has also successfully harvested bananas, yucca, passion fruit, and corn, and now owns a cow for milk production. Carlos doesn’t just dream about coffee anymore, but was able to make his dream a reality, thanks to lots of hard work and the support of Agros.

Agros

In addition to all this, Arely motivated a group of women to form Bella Vista’s first Women’s Community Bank “Luz de Dios” (Light of God,) and currently serves as the bank’s president. The group receives loans that are then invested in their individual businesses. The women also save collectively in the hopes of one day providing loans to others. Through this work, Arely has learned how to manage a small business, and has raised about 100 chickens, which she will soon sell. This will allow Arely to spend money on necessary items like food and education for her children, and in the long term it diversifies her family’s income and helps them become self-sustaining.

It was with big smiles that this family shared all they had been able to accomplish with the support of Agros. “We are up to date on managing the fields, and are receiving training, so that we are able to become more specialized.” They view the land they will someday own as “precious gift from God,” and are confident that it will not be too much longer before they will be able to pay off their land loan and receive the title. “Our dream is that we would see our children graduate, be competitive producers at a high level, sell our products in the ideal market for exports, and expand our crop areas while improving our living conditions. Thanks be to God for Agros International.”

The following was written by Rebecca Craig, an Agros International Student Worker in the Communications Department:

Last month, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched a new small farmer initiative that is directly related to the mission of Agros. Speaking at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food, Bill Gates said, “I’ve become convinced that supporting their efforts to grow more food and get it to market is one of the best possible ways to invest money if you want to help the world’s poorest people become self-sufficient.”

This idea is at the heart of Agros, which has been partnering with rural poor families in Central America and Chiapas, Mexico to attain self-sufficiency through agriculture for nearly thirty years. But one of the factors that sets Agros apart from other organizations is that we view the inability to access land ownership as a major contributor to rural poverty. Without land of their own, the rural poor must either rent small plots of land that only allow for small yields and forces them to give a portion of their yield back to the owners, or work on large farms for little pay and with no job stability. Both of these options take a huge portion of food and potential profits away from those most in need.

That’s why Agros works with a group of families to identify and purchase agricultural land, with the understanding that these families will work to pay off the loans and eventually own that land. These families begin growing their crops, initiating a repayment of those loans at a low interest rate over a period of about ten years. Their payments enable Agros to recycle these funds into future land purchases, effectively passing on the blessing to other communities in need.

Of course, land alone is not the answer. Rather, we form a partnership that is founded on our holistic and participatory development model which entails a long-term commitment to join with each of the communities. Agros comes alongside the families we work with and facilitates this process, ensuring that families access necessities like housing, clean water, and education, in addition to small business loans and training for land use and stewardship.

This is not charity; it’s an investment in the capacity of people and in agriculture.  First the families can begin to grow crops to feed themselves and their families, making day to day survival less of a struggle. Once they’ve reached a steady food supply, then they can begin trying new crops and securing contracts to sell them for additional income, with assistance from Agros agronomists.

Mateo and his wife are a great example of just how necessary land ownership can be to poverty elimination. Over twenty years ago, Mateo and his family fled from the civil war in Guatemala to the safety of Mexico. There they worked on different ranches, dependent on the whims of landowners for survival.  Twice the family tried to put down roots and grow coffee and plantains, only to be kicked off the land. Coffee in particular is a crop that grows well in some climates in Central America, and when produced at the right quality can be quite profitable. But it is also a crop that takes three years to fully mature, and thus requires being on the same land to reap the benefits of years of hard work. Mateo and his family never had that opportunity before partnering with Agros. Now the family lives in the community of Nueva Ilusión and is working towards owning their own land. Looking forward, Mateo shared, “I’m happy because now we have the security of having land to plant—no more patrones kicking us off without notice.”

We have witnessed the amazing potential that agriculture holds for our community members like Mateo, and have enthusiastically watched them journey out of poverty and into self-sufficiency in just one generation. Our families’ hard work – through cultivation of crops such as coffee and snow peas for world market consumption – has given them the opportunity not only to own their own land but also to earn a living, support their families, and dream of a brighter future. We hope that Gates’ speech draws greater attention to the importance of what small farmers are doing in Agros villages throughout Central America and Mexico.  For more information on how Agros is working to empower families and small farmers in Central America and Mexico, click here.

As our SUV bounded around the steeply graveled corner to the secluded village of San Nicolás, near the town of Cotzal, Guatemala, a bell rang out across the full flowered pea patches, signaling our arrival. I’d been anticipating this visit for nearly five years, having passed by the turn off road more times than I can remember. Though I’d become familiar with the Ixil (ee-sheel) region over the past 19 years of visits, I wondered what this particular village would be like. I soon leaned that San Nicolás is not too different from the other 11 Agros villages in the region, but certainly more isolated.

I wondered too how these families were doing now compared to where they began. Five or six years earlier something about them inspired a private West Coast foundation to sponsor the village. Throughout the years the sponsors have both financially and personally – as service teams members – supported the village, alongside Agros’ dedicated all national field staff. Now the fruits of this co-laboring are quite visible.

As the bell’s call echoed through the valley, men, women and children clambered from fields and hillside homes, waving to greet us. Swiftly surrounded by the enthusiastic (and democratically elected) village leadership, we proceeded to the blue-walled block school-house, where the village president Manuel began to recount the dreams and subsequent accomplishments of this tight-knit community. Pouring slowly over each word, he proudly, but laboriously read…yes I said, READING… from the list plastered on the blue wall:

San Nicolás’ Village Committee President, Manuel

Since my first visit to the Ixil region, I’ve come to know this extraordinarily resilient indigenous people group who suffered horribly during that country’s brutal blood-letting over 36 years of strife. They’ve preserved much of their culture and at the same time adapted to the demands of modernity. San Nicolás reflects this tension as they now use greenhouses and drip irrigation alongside split-log homes and sooty temascals, (an Ixil ‘bath-hut’, their version of a sauna), which border a cluster of new block homes and their well kept school.

As the story goes, the now nearly 90 year old patriarch, Nicolás, kept these families intact during Guatemala’s civil strife, and upon learning about Agros’ work, approached us to help him fulfill his community’s dream of owning their own land. Many months later news of their dreams met with the provision of a partner willing to participate with them, and they began in earnest what has been an arduous, but continually progressive, journey toward self-sustainability. In fact, in light of the challenges these families had to overcome in the village development process, both partner and Agros pondered whether they’d make the turn.

Since then, however, Agros field staff and numerous teams from that partner with the village have visited, faithfully serving the community with the tasks at hand, earning trust, inspiring confidence, and restoring dignity. Step by step they moved ahead, encouraged along the way, once a year or so, by their caring partners.

President Manuel, wife & Women’s Committee Secretary, Maria & two year old Nicolás, great-grandson of patriarch Nicolás, in front of his home …generation upon generation transformed!

This is the Power of Presence – one’s presence among those who’ve suffered – the importance of which can never be overestimated. Just to have Manuel proudly present each accomplishment of the village and then to lead us into their income generating Corn Grinder – one of two $ available to the village, and also to their surrounding neighbors – followed by a visit to Nicolás’ home, left my group astonished and left those we’d visited brimming with pride. Why?

Because by being present with the poor, we can show them the possibilities of unfettered and carefully stewarded support, which simply stated: empowers, restores, and transforms both giver and given unto!

Join the journey with us… support a family, support a village, support a region and then, in due course, experience firsthand the transforming power of presence.

We’re approaching that special time of year when we give more of our time, energy and resources to the people and causes that mean most to us. Some take time to spend with friends and family to celebrate the holidays in different ways. At our holiday staff party, we all donated gifts to a homeless shelter for youth in our neighborhood. Our in-country staff in Central America and Mexico take a much-deserved rest from their busy schedules traveling between their home, office and Agros communities, often being away from their family for a week at a time.

Those living in Agros villages celebrate in many different ways as well—and many give gifts to one another in response to the blessings they’ve received over the year.  We’ve had many villagers take from the surpluses they have and offer it to even poorer, neighboring families.

Personally, I’m most impacted by the generosity of the Agros families not just during this holiday season, but throughout their daily lives, even as they are fighting their way out of the cycle of poverty one day at a time.

For example, this calendar year, a long-standing activity in Guatemala villages, Women’s Community Banking, received funding to expand to four additional countries. These lending groups are sustainable in the long-term and are designed to increase access to small loans in the community and neighboring areas.

Very few rural women have access to even the smallest loans from banks or MFIs due to their lack of collateral. Through Women’s Community Banking, however, women serve as collateral for each other—if one woman defaults on her loan, it’s up to the others to cover her payment. Each woman contributes to a joint savings account which is eventually grown to provide loans to individuals outside of the Community Bank. In this way, the Community Banks are gifts that keep giving—each woman’s financial success and responsibility makes a positive impact on her family and the entire region that the bank grows to serve.

Since January, women’s Community Banks increased from 23 banks of 400 women in Guatemala to 31 banks in Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, involving over 500 women. More than $135,000 has been distributed in loans in the last 12-month period.

Another example of gifts that keep giving are animal projects.

Animals represent a long-term investment for the rural family. 88% of Agros families own animals to sustain their livelihood. Animals provide food, income diversity and security and labor-saving work in the families’ fields. Many Agros communities receive rabbits, cows, sheep or goats, along with training in animal husbandry techniques with the expectation that the first offspring will be passed on to another neighboring family.

By passing on the blessing of animals, more families have been able to access this gift of health and economic security that animals provide.

There are so many ways that Agros’ work in Central America and Mexico multiplies and continues to give after a first initial investment. Beyond Women’s Community Banking and passing on the blessing of animals, the families we serve teach us what gift giving really looks like and how powerful it can be.

You, too, can give the gift that keeps giving! And with every dollar matched now through December 31st, your impact is doubled!

· Women’s Small Business Loan
· Women’s Economic Initiative Training
· Raise a Cow
· Flock of Chicks
· Give a Goat
· Tend an Animal Menagerie

The following was written by Zach Eskenazi during his time in Honduras:

I have been working for Agros as a work-study student for over a year now. I have read and written many inspiring stories about the Agros villagers and the Agros in-country staff. A recent academic project has brought me to the Agros villages of Honduras, and I’ve learned that it’s one thing to read and write about the changes Agros brings about in the lives of the people we serve… and it is quite another to see these changes in action.

While it may not be possible for all of us to witness Agros in action first-hand, follow me as I take you through some of the events I have witnessed during my time in Agros villages:

My workspace in the Agros village of Brisas del Volcan was in the communal house, a place where the villagers gather and hold meetings. The communal house is also where one adult villager teaches others how to read and write.

Picture this, a petite woman and her husband used to have to work on land they didn’t own to scrape enough money together to feed their growing children. Because of the low pay, both husband and wife had to work long hours with very little time to do much else. After finding Agros and their own land, she no longer has to work daily in the fields with her husband. She is trying her hand at other income generating projects. And because she can read and write she sets aside two hours every afternoon to tutor other adults. One of her students boasted to me that she can now read at a third grade level. This is amazing!

On another day in Brisas del Volcan, I was invited to a meeting of the leadership committee. During this meeting, the villagers met with two people interested in buying some of their plantain crop. The village leadership as a group entered into negations with these buyers with confidence. The villagers were eager to sell the literal fruits of their labor but made sure not be taken advantage of. The meeting ended with a fair offer being made to the villagers for a portion of their plantain harvest. The villagers learned a lot from this interaction and are embolden to continue their plantain project. Before working with Agros, an experience like this was barely dreamed of! Now, the best dreams of these families are coming true.

At the end of the week the village Community Bank Committee met. This is made up of 12 women who have each received a loan from Agros for an income-generating project. Some of the women chose small animal husbandry projects while others are trying their hand at baked goods. One thing is for certain, they are confident that their income generating projects will have long-term benefits and will meet their families’ needs.

This was what was going on in Brisas just during one week. Imagine the things these villagers will achieve as they continue on the path to sustainable growth and development.

Also, you can be a part of the story of transformation in Brisas del Volcan by sponsoring this village through the Agros One Village program, where for as little as $15/month you can help these families continue to reach their dreams of a future free of poverty and hopelessness.

Her name is Juana…one of a tragically sizable number of widows in this formerly war ravaged region of Guatemala.
Juana is leaning against her humble home, and as the photo implies she’s reserved when being peered at through a camera lens, which was an uncommon experience for her when this photos was taken six years ago. But notice something else in the picture–a slight smile and grace that adorns her self-woven attire.

If you knew her story you’d have to ask, “why?” Why would a woman who has lived through a virtual genocide, extreme hunger, displacement and desperate poverty have such a sense of dignity and hope on her face?

I could explain why, in my own words, but instead… let me tell you about what she and 58 other families received two weeks ago at a truly historic event in Agros’ history.

My throat choked, my eyes pooled, and tears fell as she and the other families in the Agros village of Trapichitos, (Trapee-cheetos: “the little sugar mill”), received their land titles after ten years of toil and trust!

Agros exists to enable rural poor families–like those in Trapichitos–to work their way out of poverty as an entire community. Because the rural poor depend on land for their survival and livelihood, Agros works to provide rural villages with long-term credit for farmable land, and then works to train and support the families as they develop a thriving and economically sustainable village. The process takes approximately ten years, and when it’s done the families own it all; it’s theirs for generations to come!

The land title ceremony in Trapichitos was to celebrate the fact that a decade long journey, almost 60 families have made their best dreams come true. After so many decades of suffering, these families now have the knowledge, training, and assets to hand down to their future generations.

This title ceremony was also Agros’ largest land title ceremony to date and was an extraordinary experience for the 19 of us from North America who attended, as well as for several Agros Guatemala staff and board.

Agros has learned over the years that the journey out of poverty does not happen in isolation. Witnessed by representatives of the local Guatemalan human rights commission, the event was also evidence of consistent leadership from in-country Agros staff and villagers, as well as generous partnership from the likes of families, churches, businesses, and service organizations here in the United States (see list and links below).

I’ll never forget my first encounter with these families in February, 2000. There were no roads into the village, and in order to build their homes they had to traverse peaks and valleys, walking four miles each way in order to carry in the block, cement, sand, gravel and rebar for their first 25 homes, (750 cinder blocks per home), carrying it all on their backs and that of the ten mules they’d purchased on a loan from Agros.

I remember visiting each home on an emergency visit of concern and compassion, inquiring of each family following a tragic explosion and fire that killed a beloved young father in the village, causing fear reminiscent of the civil war years when bombs dropped from above and fire was commonplace.

I remember teams of volunteers from the U.S. who came to serve, value, learn, laugh, sing and weep… caring by coming, restoring dignity stolen:

But now, dignity is restored, hope realized, futures secured, dreams unfolding as 10 years later, families own their land, proudly holding their titles, with both husband and wife, or in Juana’s case, alone but in community.

Thanks to all our partners, individuals I cannot take space to name, as well as the following organizations & businesses:

• First Presbyterian Church Boulder, Colorado
• Richard & Joan Ringoen Family Foundation, Inc
• Atlas Coffee Importers www.atlascoffee.com
• Camano Island Coffee Roasters: www.camanoislandcoffee.com
• Caffé Lusso: www.caffélusso.com
• Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club: http://www.bbrc.net/
• Sun Microsystems Employees Matching Gift Program
• Ball Corporation Employees Matching Gift Program
• Global Giving: http://www.globalgiving.org/
• Jacobson, Lawrence & Associates, PLLC: http://cpajla.com/
• Mountain Bible Church, Los Gatos, CA
• Sammamish Presbyterian Church, Issaquah, WA
• The Dwelling Company: http://www.dwellingcompany.com/

(Photos courtesy of Hilario Pardo, Dan Ringoen and Steve Gnam)

Carlos Sarmiento has a special fondness and respect for his father, who raised him on his own after his mother left the family when he was very young.

As a child, Carlos remembers his father doing all that he could to provide for them.  That meant his father was away for long stretches day after day, having to walk two hours each way to a small plot of rented land he farmed for basic grains. Often that yielded very little, and there were nights they both went without food.  As he matured, Carlos joined his father and helped work the land. For Carlos, this was a special time when his father shared his life stories and wisdom—but there were still days that their combined efforts didn’t yield enough food to eat or cover the cost of renting the land.

At the age of 15 years old, with his father’s reluctant blessing, Carlos decided to leave his small town for the city of San Pedro de Sula in search of more stable work. But he and his wife Marina, and later their two children, continued to face many difficulties there. To provide for his new family, Carlos often worked 30 hours straight without rest—beginning at dawn, with a shovel and bucket in hand, Carlos collected trash across the city.  Like his father before him, he had little choice but to be apart from his family with very little reward or stability in return.

But after finding Agros and moving to the Honduran village of Bella Vista, Carlos has finally found the stability and security he’d always dreamed of for his growing and extended family: land, hope and life.

Today, Carlos has found a renewed confidence in himself and his ability to provide for his family. The family enjoys a home, latrine, potable water, farm animals and crops flush with coffee, bananas, beans and corn! Together, they also run a small grocery store—this provides more income and savings for the family, while also serving the needs of their community with basic items.

Carlos is proud of the work ethic his father imparted onto him, and knows the example he is now sharing with his own children will forever strengthen their resolve and break their generational poverty. This Father’s Day, help other fathers like Carlos achieve their potential by giving a gift with real meaning in honor of a man who made a difference in your life:

• Farmer’s Toolkit
• A Share of a Cow
• 100 Feet of Irrigation & Piping
  
• Agricultural Business Training

Visit the Agros One Seed Alternative Gift Catalog to see other ways you can recognize that special man in your life!

P.S.—Don’t forget, every dollar you donate to Agros by June 30—up to $100,000 in general giving—will be matched dollar for dollar in the matching gift opportunity!

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:

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.

“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!”

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.

When Agros succeeds, it is usually because we have paid attention to three things: We need to have the right families, the right land, and the right staff. Last week’s approval of Bella Vista as the fourth Agros village in Honduras is a case in point. It’s a voyage that began in the spring of 2007 when Bruce Andrews, a member of a delegation visiting Agros villages outside of San Pedro Sula spoke these words:

“If we don’t help these people, we’ll be spitting in the face of God.”

Bruce’s words were the defining moment of reflection for the delegation from Lake Grove Presbyterian Church in Lake Oswego, OR after they had visited Los Bordos, one of the most impoverished slums in the Western Hemisphere. Their visit was guided by staff from Agros Honduras and CASM, the Honduran Mennonite agency that had been caring for the people of Los Bordos. CASM had asked Agros if together, they might be able to help people from Los Bordos move back to the rural area and form successful villages.

The people of Lake Grove were willing to help support the effort, but they were not to be the only ones. Two months later, a group from Bellevue, WA, who were for the most part veteran supporters of Agros, visited Honduras and spoke with the same group that CASM had selected. They also pledged their support. We were going to need more support before we were done, but we were already paying attention to those three things, and they weren’t all looking good.

First, the Bordos families, a group of people originally from a village called El Limonar, were not doing well with negotiations for the land to which they hoped to move. Then our staff leadership in Honduras went through a transition, and Joel Martinez, our new director, wanted to rethink a number of things, including how we went about the difficult process of assisting in the replanting of urban people in a rural entrepreneurship setting.

Urban migration is a worldwide, massive phenomenon for the landless, rural poor who find it difficult enough to feed themselves, let alone make a living in rural areas, and who are subsequently drawn to cities where they can earn cash by competing for menial jobs. The influx is so great that– even with cooperative municipal governments– the migrants end up living in poor shelter and overcrowded conditions, without water, sewer, or utilities and with disease and crime. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures, if not the reality. In the gloom of these conditions a silver lining gleams: cash from the jobs, and the elusive urban temptation of possibility. By contrast, the rural areas seem hopeless.

This is the environment in which our Agros staff sought to find some of these urban poor who might be interested in returning to the country, taking on long-term debt in order to own land, and learn how to profit from its use. It’s like traveling upstream.

Joel began by finding a few families who might be interested in joining established Agros villages such as Nuevo Amanacer and Brisas del Volcan, working alongside campesinos, country-born and bred farmers who, thanks to their partnership with Agros, were well on their way to profiting from their agricultural enterprises. The experiment was only partially successful. A few families stayed, but others ended up returning to the city, citing the amount of hard work and the long wait for cash as reasons.

In time, Joel could see a way: It helped if Agros and CASM found people who had migrated to Bordos from the area where the new village was to be established. It also helped if the families had only recently arrived in the city, and had not become accustomed to the immediate reward of a cash environment.

He then found a group of campesinos in the La Montañita area of the Santa Barbara region who wanted to become an Agros village, and who were interested in the idea of welcoming back some families who had moved from there to Bordos. He brought the two sets of families– 29 from the country, and six from Bordos– together to talk. The families agreed to work together, and began looking for land. That proved to be a lengthy process as well, since the land required irrigation, and that in turn required obtaining water rights.

Meanwhile, we were still working on the necessary financial support. Two principals from Ludeman Capital Management, financial advisors based in Bellingham and Seattle, also visited Honduras, and provided that crucial final cap. A couple of graduate students from Harvard, moved by their visit to Honduras, joined the Bellevue group.

Finally, everything seemed solid: families, land and staff. The original support partners, who had been so eager to help two years previous, were thankfully still ready, so that when we went through the Agros International board’s due diligence process for approval, we obtained it. The land is situated high, and the villagers decided to call it Bella Vista. The resemblance to “Bellevue” (the French version of “Bella Vista”) may be unintentional, but was not lost on at least one person from the Bellevue group of supporters.

When people from the developed world are faced with the overwhelming plight of the urban poor in the developing world, we tend to have one of two extreme responses: We want to help immediately, or we despair of ever making a difference. If you think about it, both stances are self-centered. The former assuages our pain, that latter attempts to anesthetize it. Either way, the response is about us.

There is a third way: To gently and firmly decide to make a difference somewhere, go about it, and not tire of doing good. This is what the staff of CASM did, it’s what Joel Martinez and the Agros Honduras staff did, it’s what the families of Bella Vista did, and it’s what their supporters from Oregon, Massachusetts and Washington did. As Barry Rowan, one of the Bellevue group said during his visit, it’s what the Pilgrim immigrants to America did: They persevered, over the long haul, to a new beginning.

Bienvenidos, Bella Vista. You are worth the wait.

Last week I was ambling across the beautiful land of the new Agros Nicaragua village “Luz del Mañana“, (Light of Tomorrow) with young José Adén ¡n Luna Dominguez, the community’s newly elected president. I was on this trip to share the work and vision of Agros with a remarkable group of supporters and potential supporters.

Vision Trip member, Bill LaMarche, asked me as we reached their new homesites, “David, please ask José Adén ¡n what his greatest challenges are as he leads this village?”

His humble reply stunned us both, exemplifying the heart & soul of Agros’ work among the extreme poor:

“I am only twenty-nine and this is very hard work for us all.  We’re a mixed age group, coming to a new place, new land, dreams now in sight, but full of many challenges. For that reason I think clear leadership on my part is critical right now, and for that I need two things. The first, is character. Character shown in both strength and sweetness. The second is patience, beginning with me, knowing I need the older members of our community to share their wisdom as we face each challenge together.”

This is the heart of future success, willing to lead by example, toiling, like a butterfly breaking from the cocoon, emerging from bondage to destiny.

What’s that got to do with the title of my blog post?

Why everything of course. It’s precisely this vision of transforming lives, one that is compelling, exciting and working that gives us confidence to ask you who read this to take up José Adén’s challenge, to lean into our strengths, sweetly and patiently, so that together we can continue to move Agros’ mission & vision forward to serve more families in need.

To that end we’re pleased to share the news of our anonymous challenge match! For the month of June, every new donation that you give to the Agros mission will be doubled, up to $100,000.

Three days into this last month we’re at $40,000 of that goal and are now looking to finish the remaining $60,000 so we can secure the full $100,000 matching amount.

Please consider this opportunity to double your gift, whether you send in a check, go online with your credit card, or make use of the Agros One Seed Gift Catalog.

Thank you for considering and acting as you’re able!

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.

Near Comí­tan, Chiapas Mexico.

Twelve of us have come to visit them, these people who have asked to be part of a new Agros village. We have been traveling along a secondary road here in Chiapas, Mexico, near the Guatemalan border. The road is dotted with small plots and shacks, most of which are rented for 50% of the income generated by any produce grown. That’s the life here. The glimpses that we have along the road convince us that it’s not much of a living. Most of these people make less than $1 a day.

Agros staff have been working with several groups of people in this region for almost a year, teaching values-based planning, listening to the dreams that they have for the future, explaining to them how Agros works. We are going to visit one of these groups. They know that, if they are selected and agree to it, they will qualify to enter a long-term program to obtain land that they will eventually own themselves, because they will have purchased it with their work. They will receive subsidized credit and for the first time, have food security, as they seek to farm, not just for a living, but for a future.

The staff leads us down a dirt road, to a small area that this group has carved out as a makeshift community center. There is a table around which have been set some plastic chairs, a rough semicircle. We are urged to sit down. Water is fetched, so we can wash our hands. A young woman brings us bottled orange soda and packaged cookies. Some of us crack open the sodas and take a sip. We say that we’ve really come to listen to their story.

The men gather first. They stand opposite us, completing the circle. After them and eventually standing behind them, the women and children trickle in, perhaps 20 people in all.

Sergio asks us to introduce ourselves, explaining that he will toss a ball to the first person, who will pass on the ball to the next one. The first person is one of the women in our group. After the third person, it becomes clear that the women in our group are tossing the ball to each other first, before the men get a chance to speak. There is laughter all around the circle. We’ve broken the ice.

Then it is their turn. Their leader, Pablo Gustavo, is a confident man who begins by describing who they are. Most of them are Guatemalan refugees who settled in Mexico after fleeing the civil wars in their own country. This group is made up of people from five different tribes, each with their own language: Chuj, mam, mimam, acateco, and kanjobal. Most of the men speak Spanish as a second language; they have to, in order to work as hired hands. There are some 20 families in this group, with about 80 children. They have banded together for survival, and their faces show how necessary that is.

“We came here because in Mexico, there is more support for us,” Pablo explains. “And the government here helps us. But we are separate. For us to grow stronger, we need to get land together. The only hope we have is with Agros. We hope to get your support.”

Other men hold the ball and say similar things. We have just come to hear their stories; we’ll have no influence on the selection, but they can’t know that. The Agros Mexico staff will have to make the hard decisions, based on what the people have shown them over a year of working together as a group.

We ask to hear from some of the women. Willingness to empower women is another vital sign of a potential Agros group: we know that women do best with both credit and savings, basic building blocks of the Agros model. They save 4-5 times what a man will save, and are most likely to use the savings for child welfare and education.

Katarina, the eldest woman there, asks for the ball. She has five children. The two-year-old boy at Katarina’s skirts is one of her grandchildren. “We ate once a day in Guatemala,” she says, “I left Guatemala not for myself, but so that my children would not be killed, because (what was happening in Guatemala) was not their fault.” We ask what her hopes are for her children’s future. “My hopes are for my sons and their families, that they can make a living off the land.” It seems that we are holding that hope in our hands.

Mechora has to be coached forward to speak, and our interpreter has to lean over to hear her quiet voice: she has 14 children, she says. Then she remembers: it’s 15. The immediate response from the women in our group does not have to be translated: “Ai-yai-yai!” Everyone laughs, including Mechora, who covers her mouth.

The eldest son is 25 years old and in the United States, likely as an illegal immigrant, but no one asks. It’s a moot point anyway. Since the fiscal crisis of 2008, the remittances from Mexicans employed as day laborers in the States have dropped sharply. Illegal work in the US isn’t the solution it used to be, and it never breaks the cycle of poverty.

We coax stories out of a few more women and then it’s time to go. Someone points out that we haven’t touched any of the cookies. “Take them with you,” they urge. We glance at the table. The pile is likely worth a half-day’s wages. They won’t let us leave without taking two packages.

As we drive away in the van, I ask Julio César what the staff is looking for. “You don’t have to have experience in cooperative work to be successful in an Agros village,” he replies, “but you have to have the skills and the motivation to do so. Between this group and the two others, we will find enough families to make up the 6th Agros village in Mexico.”

The World Bank has given seed money for Mexico #6, but it’s about 25% of what Agros needs to complete the village. Others have given as well, but we’re not at full funding yet, and the Agros International board requires five years of full funding in order to approve a new village.

Breaking the cycle of poverty requires a long-term commitment from both the families and the Agros staff. The people will be selected, but before they can select land, they will have to wait until Agros has the resources. The last time I looked, we needed over $300,000 before we can give the Agros Mexico staff the go-ahead to begin the search for land.

That night, with many things going through my head, I can only hear Katarina’s final remark: “Sin la tierra, no tenemos nada.” Without land, we have nothing.

It wasn’t a plea. It was a simple and accurate assessment.

“My dream?  To give my children the education I never had.”  I’m sitting with Petronila, a sturdy woman with a tender but determined posture in the Agros community “Trapichitos” in the highlands of Quiché, Guatemala.  As she tells me about her life before Agros, the war and suffering in her country, she recalls how hard life was. “We suffered. There were no houses. No land to work or produce.” In addition to the physical suffering, being an indigenous woman kept her from learning to how to read or write, resulting in years of shameful discrimination — a legacy that she is now committed to preventing in the lives of her four young daughters.

Around the side of Petronila’s home is a raised compost bin where hundreds of little worms break down organic matter, like kitchen scraps and yard waste, into rich compost that she can apply to her crops. “My motivation for all of my projects is my children. I don’t want them to have to suffer like my husband Cristobal and I did.  Every project we do is so they can continue going to school.“  She proudly opens the lid of her bin and shows us the rich, dark compost that symbolizes life for her entire family.  Compost that not only nourishes her crops, but her family’s needs for nutritious food, bountiful crops that provide income, and a full education for their children.

Petronila isn’t the only one who values education.  Petronila, who has participated in the women’s Agros Community Bank for the last eight years to support her projects in chickens, textiles, vegetables and coffee, has instilled enterprising spirits and a vision for the future in each of her young daughters as well.  When I ask one of the girls her name, she takes my notebook to not only tell me her name, but show me how to write it.  “J-A-C-I-N-T-A,” she spells deliberately and proudly.  Petronila is gleaming.  I ask each child what they would like to be when they grow up. “A nurse!” Jacinta quickly responds. “I want to cure all the sick people in my community.“  It’s obvious that this little girl not only has a vision, but a strong purpose at a young age.

Our time is wrapping up, but there’s more Petronila wants to tell us. As we walk away from the worm bin, she cuts me a gift of sugar cane for the road and shares, “Our life is different than it was before. We are seeing changes in our daily lives because of Agros. I am very happy with Agros’ work in Trapichitos since there’s a beginning and an end to their time with us, we know that we are the ones directing the projects that bring us life.”

And it’s true, in a few months Petronila will begin selling the worms given to her by Agros to other families, passing on the rich compost that the worms provide as well as the blessing of training that she has received from Agros. Petronila will use all of this to positively impact yet another family’s journey towards land, hope, and life.

During times of global economic turmoil, providing access to training that empowers the poorest of this world becomes crucial. Through training and community education, people in Agros villages are able to start their own businesses and grow a robust local economy.

Benjamin and Catarina, a couple from the Agros Guatemala village ‘Cajixay’, have used their entrepreneurial spirit to start new businesses with the training they have received from Agros staff.  This training empowers them to develop new  income for their family.

Benjamin is the first man in three generations of his family to own land thanks to the support of Agros International. He and his wife Catarina have lived in Cajixay for all their lives, (except for a brief time during Guatemala’s civil war when they were forced from their village).  Even though Benjamin was the third generation to live in Cajixay, his family did not own its own land. As a boy, Benjamin would join his father at the large coastal farms working as a wage laborer.

“Life on those farms was difficult,” he remembers, years later. “We always left Cajixay healthy and strong and returned home weak and sick.”

Today, Benjamin no longer has to live the life of a day laborer. Since Agros offered credit for land for his community 5 years ago, Benjamin has been cultivating his own land.

“I, Benjamin, am the first man in my family in three generations to own land,” he humbly says.

To help earn extra income, Catarina has involved herself in a weaving project with Agros where she is learning to improve the cost efficiency of her already excellent weaving skills.

But Benjamin and Catarina were not satisfied just to improve skills they already possessed. They wanted to learn more. So when it came time to build new, permanent houses in Cajixay, they saw an opportunity to broaden their skill sets. Rather than just watch the house being built, Catarina and Benjamin had the Agros staff teach them how to actually build these structures. Now Catarina and Benjamin are earning additional income by building homes for other families in the village!

Since then, they have also learned how to construct a new type of stove, which they are also being hired to build.  Slowly but surely, they are ensuring that each home in Cajixay has an improved stove.

“We are so grateful for our American brothers who have helped to make the work of Agros possible and who visit Cajixay. With all of the support and love we have received, we are able to move forward.“

Manuel jumped into the bed of our pick-up truck, an ear to ear grin on his face as he waved, shouting to his fellow Tzotzil villagers, “I’m off to the Teaching Fields to give our new gringo family gifts of gratitude for this momentous day they brought us!”

Alfonso, an Agros Agronomist, said that Manuel had a surprise for us. A few minutes later he pulled over and both hopped out of the truck, crossed the road bending beneath the black mesh canopied Rose training field, with the glint of drawn knife blades shinning as they began their cutting search. Sensing what was up, I searched for my camera and found it in the knick of time, snapping a photo of grace personified in Manuel’s face.

I did this just before he began to hand each of us a long stem, rain dappled, red rose, saying “Chahall” (which means “thank-you” in his native Tzotzil), and then waving goodbye as he turned for the walk back up to the Agros village of Nueva Palestina, in the hilly region of Southwestern Chiapas, México.

Only a few hours before this tender moment, the seven of us were strangers –wrapped in a cultural bouquet of sights, sounds and smells. Together we were witnessing the renewal of hope of thirty-two families as we signed a covenant of mutual commitment between Nueva Palestina, Apple Physical Therapy (a 260 employee company providing financial and service team support to Agros International), and Agros México, unfolding before us like Manuel’s fragrant roses.

Seizing upon the ceremony as a teachable moment, Sergio Sanchez, Country Director of Agros Mexico, involved all as they streamed forth to sign the symbolic banner of brotherhood. While some could indeed sign, others could only make a thumbprint, followed by one of the village leaders or Sergio, who would write the person’s name above the ink mark.

Once the formalities were finished, the families invited us to a feast of fried free-range chicken, rice, black beans and cups of Horchata; dipped from a new 30 gallon plastic garbage can full enough for all present to have a subsequent celebration drink.

At this moment, while the village waited their turn, a “thorn prick” pained us all –we were to eat alone, while the eyes of children and women watched waiting until we were finished. Here our gentle mentor Sergio emerged again; reminding us that we were honored guests and this was their custom. He said, “Live into their moment for in doing so you honor them.”

Solidarity with the poor means risking life-altering encounters and advocacy. When we are willing to venture forth, trusting tutors like Sergio and a humble villager like Manuel to open our eyes and hearts we walk in the “teaching fields” together, being led among both the roses and thorns.

If you’d like to learn more about entering into teachable moments with us, email me at davidc@agros.org!

The full participation and involvement of the people we serve is fundamental to the mission of Agros. Paola, a 19-year-old woman from Cajixay, Guatemala, has worked as an Agros promoter since 2006. Her passion to improve the lives of the poor has helped many women in Guatemala. She is currently studying Social Work at the University of Santa Cruz.

“Agros began to work with Cajixay in 2002, and I have seen many changes since then, both in the lives of my family and in the whole community. My family has its own house for the first time!”

In November 2006, Agros offered Paola a job as a promoter of the textiles and weaving project. “I teach women how to improve their products and how to sell them more effectively. I work with all the Agros villages in the area, including Cajixay. It is a privilege to help the women in my own community. I am even teaching my mother!”

With the money that she earns, Paola pays for her studies at the university. “I work Monday through Friday for Agros, and I attend classes on Saturdays in Santa Cruz del Quiché. Saturdays are long days; I leave my house at 4 in the morning and return at about 10 at night, but it is worth the effort.”

Paola is studying social work, and her dream is to continue helping the people in her community and in all of Guatemala. “I love my work!” she says.

Paola’s deep conviction to help the poor are reflected in these words, “I want to urge all you who read this – fight to improve your lives. And if you don’t have your own struggles, fight to improve other people’s lives.”

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.