Agros currently supports 35 developing communities in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Chiapas, Mexico. Land is a precious commodity throughout the world. Rural poor families do not have access to credit to purchase their own land. Agros focuses on land ownership because owning land is one of the most effective ways for the rural poor to escape the entrapment of poverty.
In rural developing world communities, poor families can become trapped in a cycle of poverty: unable to afford their own land, paying high rent for poor quality land, and working for desperately low wages as farmhands and migrant laborers. Each Agros-sponsored village is a seed that brings change to both its members and its neighbors.
Although rural communities share common problems in many third world nations, we started our work in Central America because of its unique recent history of civil war and violence. Central America in the late 20th century suffered upheaval, loss of land, and civil war. Ways of village life that had sustained people for generations were disrupted traumatically. Many who owned their land fled to the mountains, and those who remained were often brutally murdered or evicted. Families were separated and education disrupted.
Although painful pasts remain, our work helps to heal them by giving people the opportunity for land ownership and the tools and education to achieve their dreams.
