Agros Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2010

Seattle-based non-profit announces 40th village
New village enables 25 Guatemalan refugee families in Chiapas, Mexico to break the cycle of poverty through land ownership

SEATTLE, WA–Twenty-five hardworking, yet landless and impoverished families are getting an extraordinary opportunity to escape poverty—to own 175 acres of productive agricultural land so important to their livelihoods, and to build a thriving, sustainable community of their own.

Nueva Ilusión, meaning “New Dream,” is the latest and 40th village project launched and supported by Agros International, a Seattle-based nonprofit enabling the world’s rural poor to attain land ownership and break the cycle of poverty through a holistic and sustainable approach to village development.

Villagers in Nueva Ilusión—like the families in the 39 Agros-sponsored villages that have preceded them—will access the land critical to their survival and hopes for a better future through long-term loans from Agros. This land will be used to generate sustainable income to support their families, pay back the loans, and create a secure future. Agros —committed to ending the cycle of poverty in all its forms — will provide support every step of the way as families define a community vision, develop local leadership, and launch a strategic development plan that includes housing, irrigation, agricultural business training, micro-enterprise loans, and education and health programs. “There are no other organizations like Agros that we know of that use long-term credit for land ownership, combined with holistic development, to empower rural families to work their own way out of extreme poverty,” says Laurie Werner, Agros Director of Program.

Since 1982, over 9,000 poorest of the world’s poor have gained land, hope, and transformed lives in Agros-supported villages throughout El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Mexico. The Agros village model has caught on among villagers and supporters in recent years, with the number of Agros villages doubling from 20 to 40 within the past six years.

Agros has also won recognition for providing “lasting solutions to poverty” from an alliance of the World Bank, the UNDP, and the Inter-American Foundation.