Agros Blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 2010

Seattle-based non-profit enables land for 59 indigenous Guatemalan families
After three decades, refugee survivors of Guatemala armed conflict of 1980s return to their land as rightful owners

SEATTLE, WA–Fifty-nine indigenous Mayan Guatemalan families received titles to their land in early April, twenty-nine years after fleeing from violence incited by the civil war that ravaged rural areas 1960-1996.

These families, living in the village of Trapichitos in rural Quiché, Guatemala, including nearly 250 men, women and children, partnered with Seattle-based non-profit Agros International in 2000. Agros is a non-profit that enables 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 Trapichitos—like the families in the other 39 Agros-sponsored villages throughout Central America and Mexico—have spent the past ten years defining a community vision, developing local leadership and implementing a strategic plan that includes housing, irrigation, agricultural business training, micro-enterprise loans, and education and health programs. Agros purchases the land and through long-term support, training and access to credit, families are able to repay the land loan. “Land ownership is critical to ensure vulnerable families are empowered to have a means to work themselves out of poverty,” says Director of Program Laurie Werner. “The Trapichitos families now hold titles to their property, a security and asset they can pass on to ensure a sustainable future for the next generation.”

Since 1982, over 9,000 of the world’s poorest 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. To date, 210 families, about 1,370 people, have become proud land owners through Agros.

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, and is also a winner of the 2008 World Bank Global Marketplace Competition.

To read personal reflections about Trapichitos, read this blog post from David Carlson, Agros Donor Relations National Director.