Agros Blog

November 6^th marked the ninth annual UN International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Realizing that this is a rather long title for an international ‘day’, and that this may seem like an obscure connection for Agros to make, it does in fact present an opportunity to highlight several important aspects of our work.

Agros was founded in 1982, in the midst of a violent and decades-old civil war whose epicenter was located in a region of Guatemala called the “Ixil Triangle”.  During this 36-year civil war, more than 200,000  lives were claimed, hundreds of villages destroyed, and more than one million people forced to flee their homes (any refugees fled to Chiapas, Mexico–where Agros currently has six villages in development).

More than 80% of the victims in the war were indigenous Mayans.  The atrocities that took place during this time are unimaginable and overwhelming. Even long after the violence ended, the land and the people were left ravaged, desolate, and in the words of many Ixil people…”we were forgotten.”

Conventional wisdom might dictate that starting a development organization in the middle of a civil war might not be the most advisable; yet Agros’ history is one of responding to enormous need felt by people who are among the most remote, impoverished people in our world.  The Agros response is to alleviate poverty by providing rural people with what is most essential: secure ownership of their own, farmable land; sustainable economic development; and holistic community support.

This connection we make to this UN sponsored international day is in the consideration of “damage to the environment in times of armed conflict that impair ecosystems and natural resources long after the conflict has ceased“.  Our work to connect rural people to their own land has necessarily involved empowering rural families to rebuild and restore land and villages destroyed by civil conflict.

Virtually all of the Agros villages located in the Ixil region of Guatemala were founded in the midst (or aftermath) of this violence.  Today, these families are learning to thrive; hope has been and is continuing to be restored.

To learn more about these villagers–in their own words–and to see what it means for them to have the opportunity to rebuild their lives and land, please see the video “Restoring Lives” in the Agros video gallery.