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Youth Storytellers In Honduras: Part 1

June 1, 2022

Intro

The first round of videos in our Youth Storytellers series come to us from some young change-makers in Honduras. Our Youth Storytellers have filmed and edited these videos to demonstrate the successes in their communities. 

Merlin Aguirre

In Honduras, we are working alongside our partners at Vecinos Honduras to foster enterprises at the local level in order to regenerate local livelihoods and build the economies of rural communities. Vecinos Honduras provides education for members of the community, particularly young people, to learn skills and trades that allow them to gain financial independence and bolster their local economy. Through these efforts, over 650 people, including over 70 young people, have been able to form savings and credit cooperatives, mobilizing over $510,800 in savings.

Youth Storyteller Merlin Aguirre is one such youth in the Los Cavales Numero Uno community of Azabache. The son of a single mother, Merlin joined the El Esfuerzo Local Saving and Credit Union youth group Alianza Juvenil at age 20, where he received training from Vecinos Honduras to make metal silos and quickly started expanding his tinsmithing skills. Now, at 26 years old, Merlin owns his own tinsmith shop, Hojalateria La Bendición, where he crafts and sells metal silos, bread recipients, metal tubs, chimneys, accessories for coffee grinding machines, signs, license plate frames for vehicles, and more. Merlin’s skills and entrepreneurship are helping to revitalize his local economy by allowing his neighbors to buy the items they need locally – to store grain to increase food security and gain independence from middlemen, process agricultural products, avoiding smoke contamination from cooking fires in homes, and using motorcycles for local transport.  Merlin is also teaching his craft to other youths to enable his community to build success together.

Watch the video below to see him demonstrate his craft:

Women’s Empowerment

A large focus of Groundswell International’s work is on empowering women in rural communities around the globe. Women in the Concepción de María region of Choluteca in Honduras have been empowered to find their voices and take their places as leaders in their communities thanks to practical training and education from our partners Vecinos Honduras. Community members explain that while women used to feel timid, the education they have received has instilled confidence in them to make their voices heard and has left women feeling that they are now on an equal level with the men in their communities.  

Similarly, community analysis and refection facilitated by Vecinos Honduras has helped everyone in the community to better understand and relate to each other. Many men now see more clearly the contributions that women have always made to their families and communities in so many ways, which has fostered deeper respect and collaboration in the community as men now contribute equally in their homes and families. 
Watch the video below to learn more about how the people in these communities are thriving:

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Agroecology, Honduras, Youth Storytellers, Youth Storytellers Program

Youth Storytellers: Empowering the Next Generation

May 16, 2022

Agroecological farming and resilient local food systems are more effective and beneficial for people and our planet than industrialized agriculture. The need for a just transition from fossil fuel-based agriculture and dependence on food imports is even more evident with the high inflation of food and chemical fertilizers that are impacting millions. Scaling agroecological and local market alternatives are essential for nourishing people and reversing climate change. Yet, the false narrative that continues to dominate globally is that industrialized agriculture must ‘feed the world.’ This is a mindset that we work alongside our partners to change.

A large part of our mission at Groundswell International is to empower the communities we work in because we know wholeheartedly that the people in these communities are the real change-makers at the core of the success of our programs. This is especially true of young people.

The Youth Storytellers Program

With this in mind, in 2021, we piloted a Youth Storytellers program with our network partners Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD) in Burkina Faso and Vecinos Honduras in Latin America. We supported our partners to identify interested young people in program communities and facilitated them to retain basic communications training and equipment to produce brief videos on local success stories. 

Since then, our Youth Storytellers have documented the lives of smallholder farmers, including the strategies and techniques critical to their success and the universal elements shared with other farmers around the world. They have highlighted the improved resilience achieved by farming with nature instead of against it. 

The Youth Storytellers have shared their videos locally with their communities through social media and gatherings, inspiring others to action. Now we’re taking the opportunity to finalize and translate 15 videos to share with you to allow these youths to shape the narrative internationally in 2022.

youth storytellers

These Youth Storytellers are not only reshaping the global narrative surrounding how to ‘feed the world,’ but also working to inspire and empower other young people where they live. Youth Storytellers like Edras Amado Benegas in Honduras have led by example and gained a sense of agency as they recognize, document, and strengthen the power of community-based organizations to spread real solutions.

Edras explained, “I want to motivate other young people who are going through difficult situations, and who do not feel they count. I invite them to get involved, and find the opportunity to participate and be heard.”

It has been absolutely amazing to watch our Youth Storytellers use communications to drive positive social change, and we’re excited for you to see what they have to offer as we continue to find ways to make local voices heard globally in 2022.

Watch these Youth Storytellers in action here.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Agroecology, Burkina Faso, Latin America, Youth Storytellers

Report From The Field: Honduras

May 4, 2022

By: Chandi Guntupalli

As Groundswell International’s newest staff member, I had the privilege of doing my first field visit to our partners in March 2022, along with our Executive Director and co-founder Steve Brescia. Steve and I traveled to Honduras at the end of March 2022 for five days to meet with our partner, Vecinos Honduras, to discuss our plans for the Central American Dry Corridor. 

honduras

The Central American Dry Corridor is one of the most vulnerable parts of the world, one that’s been highly affected by climate change. This region extends throughout El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, with Honduras and Guatemala experiencing extreme drought. Many people in the Central American Dry Corridor live in rural areas and live in poverty, forced to depend on grain crops for sustenance and survival. 

This was my first time in Honduras and my first time in Central America. I was excited to travel to a country I had never been to, and I was grateful to travel again internationally since COVID-19. Little did I know that this trip was going to be one of the most impactful experiences I’ve had in the past few years.

honduras

Since our purpose was to discuss our strategy to support Vecinos Honduras in its plan for the Central American Dry Corridor, we went straight to the region after we landed in Honduras. Staying in Nacaome, in the southern part of Honduras, allowed us to visit a regional office of Vecinos Honduras to learn how their services and programs differ based on the needs of the community. Over the next few days, we traveled to various municipalities in the region to meet with farmer community leaders and local organizations making a difference. This was absolutely my favorite part of the trip – to meet with the farmers and their families that we support through our work. They were incredibly gracious, allowing us into their homes and serving us lunch from the crops of their farms – this was literally a farm-to-table experience. Interacting with and learning from the farmers was a humbling experience to learn about the impact of our work and also realize how much further we need to go. 

honduras

At first, I felt out of place and out of my element in Honduras, not speaking the language and not having traveled to that region of the world. Through, sharing my experiences with the farmers and learning from their experiences, I felt a kinship in that as humans we really have the same goals – for our families to be safe, healthy, and happy. There is much to do in that region, in order to ensure each family is nourished, and I’m proud to be part of a community that is working towards that goal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chandana Guntupalli is Groundswell’s Donor Relations Manager. She has over six years of experience in non-profit development supporting programs focused on domestic violence, transitional housing, anti-bias education, and youth civic engagement. She has a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Philosophy from Michigan State University and a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies from Rutgers-Newark. She is excited about the community development and empowerment that Groundswell develops for farmers across the world.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Agroecology, Central America, Dry Corridor, Honduras

Voices From the Field: Interviews with Steve Brescia

March 18, 2022

At Groundswell International, collaboration is at the heart of what we do. We have always worked closely with local farmers in West Africa, the Americas, and South Asia and partner organizations in those areas because we know that the needs of every community are unique, and no one understands those unique needs better than the locals experiencing them. 

voices from the field

While our focus has always been on enabling local farmers to support their communities by creating healthy farming and food systems, we believe we can do even more. 

Currently, the world, including the US and the international communities we work to support, is facing multiple crises related to our economic and political models, climate change, migration, and beyond. How different communities view these crises vary, but the work we do with our local partners is deeply rooted in understanding the effects of these challenges on our communities and how to solve them. As awareness of the damage from systemic racism and colonialism grows globally, it becomes increasingly important to amplify the voices of folks from the communities most impacted by these issues.

Voices From the Field 

Our Executive Director and co-founder, Steve Brescia, spent last year speaking with leaders from our local partner organizations and our regional coordinators to understand the unique views and needs of their communities. What ways are they seeing racism and colonialism directly play out in their countries? How are political and economic issues like food scarcity, climate change, and environmental crises affecting their communities? 

Rather than sharing curated facts about global challenges, we are focusing on raising others’ voices so you can hear straight from our partners and coordinators about the challenges facing their communities and the work they are doing to tackle those challenges head-on. Challenges like a Western influence in Mali that is causing a domino effect crisis: “We see that the fertility of the soil is declining,” Pierre Demble of partner organization Sahel Eco says. “People are more or less in a mindset in their mind that if you don’t use chemical fertilizer you will not produce. Although they know in the past they were using compost which was giving them very good production, but today due to all this marketing and the media, the people think if we don’t use chemical fertilizer we will not produce. So we have here a crisis of the agriculture production which is also affecting the economic power of the community.”

This focus on individual community voices just makes sense, because our partner organizations are doing work at the microlevel in their communities. Partners like Fatou Batta of Association Nourrir Sans Détruire in Burkina Faso, who says their “program is trying to not exacerbate the tension between the community, but working to reduce the inequality, to reduce vulnerability, to make sure people can live together, share their concern, discuss their concern and identify the solution or the activities they can do together so that we improve their lives. So what we can do at a microlevel is that, in the villages.”

From our partners, you will also hear about the opportunities being created in these communities, like in Mali, where Dembele says they are working to enable youths “to really reform our governance system to actually give the power to the people, how they want the community to be governed in the coming year.”

The work we do on the ground is important, but sometimes the best way to empower is to sit back and allow other voices to be heard. It is only through true allyship, listening, and mutual learning that we can truly understand these challenges to catalyze change and reverse the downward spiral of poverty and vulnerability. 

Please join us in listening.

Filed Under: Blog

Groundswell’s 2020 Annual Report: Highlights

July 21, 2021

Each year, the annual report sums up the progress our organization has made in countries around the world. 2020 was a year plagued by hardships and crises, yet we were still able to partner with grassroots organizations to bring agroecological principles where resilience to hunger, disease, and poverty was needed most.

Here are a few highlights from the 2020 Annual Report

  • In Haiti, Groundswell is working with Partenariat pour le Développement Local (PDL) to scale farmer-led agroecology to address climate change. In 2020 over 360 community leaders, nearly 40% women, were engaged in participatory workshops to better understand the causes of climate change, based on their own experience and analysis, and what farming families can do about it. 
  • In Burkina Faso, we have been working with Association Nourrir sans Détruire (ANSD) to strengthen a territorial movement in the eastern part of the country for farmer-led innovation and spread of agroecological alternatives. Farmers are obtaining incredible results despite the water scarcity near the encroaching Sahara desert. Women are playing a leading role, organizing to produce vegetables in the dry season, and creating more nutritious household gardens. 
  • In southern Mexico, the loss of native seed varieties is a crisis undermining indigenous communities and cultures. In response, Groundswell is facilitating a collaborative action-learning process with eight local NGOs to strengthen farmers’ capacities to recover, improve, produce and distribute quality native seeds to farmers.
  • In 2020 in response to COVID-19, we contribute to the AFSA publication The Barefoot Guide to Surviving COVID-19. Groundswell International’s Peter Gubbels was a part of, the Natural Food Barefoot Guide Writer’s Collective, which wrote the guidebook. It documents how people across Africa can weather the COVID-19 pandemic, debunking many misconceptions from the food industry. The guide provides real, sustainable solutions to the health challenges families face, and guidance on producing and eating healthy local food.

To learn more about the programs we support that are strengthening the capacity of communities to sustainably improve their lives, and to see a breakdown of our financials for 2020, read the full annual report. You can also view our audited financials for 2020 here.

Filed Under: Blog

Catalyzing Resilient Seed Systems in Mexico during COVID-19

May 12, 2021

In southern Mexico, the loss of native seed varieties is a crisis undermining indigenous communities and cultures. We at Groundswell International are facilitating a collaborative action-learning process with eight local NGOs to strengthen farmer’s capacities to recover, improve and distribute quality local corn, beans, wheat, and amaranth seeds. This reverses the loss of biodiversity and improves food production and resilience to climate change.

Catalyzing Resilient Seed Systems in Mexico

Seed production is essential, not only to conserve biodiversity, but also for rural communities’ food security. This is broadly involved in the community culture of all three regions (Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca) where the project is being implemented.

The initiative involves over 1,150 families spread across 53 communities in the states of Campeche, Chiapas and Oaxaca. Together the organizations and communities have established 38 plots for participatory seed improvement, and 123 plots to produce and distribute 92 different native varieties of corn, beans, wheat and amaranth. 

In 2020 they produced enough seed to sow 133 acres of corn (2,160 lbs. of seed); 103 acres of wheat (7,385 lbs.); and 463 acres of beans (6,195 lbs.).  

The pandemic has only exposed the depths of social inequality and the extensive damage we have caused to the ecosystem, forming a breeding ground facilitating disease. Undoubtedly COVID-19 has highlighted human vulnerability. 

The pandemic has also been an opportunity to innovate and use other communication tools to discuss and review the project’s progress together with farmers. One thing that seems very important is that, despite our low presence in communities during this year, there are other people interested in participating in the project.

“In spite of COVID 19 restrictions, the organizations were able to organize seed fairs, community events, and seed exchanges,” said program coordinator Edwin Escoto. “We saw the creative work of communities to ensure their own food production during the crisis, and many young people are returning to communities to farm.  We need to integrate the youth to take this work forward.”

 

Filed Under: Blog

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