Accountability

Groundswell International’s 2022 Year in Review

December 27, 2022

As another year comes to an end, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect on the progress we’ve made this year. 2022 was a big year for Groundswell International, our partner organizations, and our program communities, as we saw continued successes and instances of resiliency throughout the communities we serve. The year also saw our message of how agroecology is central to building healthy farming and food systems from the ground up spread further than ever before.

Take a moment to reflect with us on some of our favorite projects, publications, and events in 2022.

Youth Storytellers

This year we shared a project that was several years in the making: the Youth Storytellers program. Piloted in 2021, we joined our network partners Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD) and Vecinos Honduras, to identify interested young people in Honduras and Burkina Faso and provided these young changemakers with basic communications training and equipment to produce brief videos focused on their communities. The Youth Storytellers have documented the lives of smallholder farmers in Groundswell International program communities, including the strategies and techniques critical to their success and the universal elements shared with other farmers around the world, while also emphasizing the improved resilience achieved by these farmers through their use of agroecology.

The Youth Storytellers shared their stories with their communities via social media to inspire their neighbors into action, but in 2022 we took the opportunity to finalize and translate 15 of the videos they filmed and shared them with you over the course of the year. This program has been successful beyond what we could have imagined, allowing these innovative youths to use communication as a catalyst to drive social change and shape the narrative internationally surrounding agroecology, climate issues, and how to ‘feed the world.’

Watch the videos and learn more about the program on our website or on YouTube, and find entries with a deeper look at the stories featured in these videos on our blog.

Field to Film: A Youth Storytellers Film Festival

In December, we took our Youth Storytellers program one step further by hosting a virtual film festival, showcasing stories from even more incredible youths throughout Burkina Faso, Ecuador, Honduras, and Nepal. The two-hour, first-of-its-kind event gave even more Youth Storytellers the chance to highlight their work capturing community-led and ecological farming solutions, spreading them locally, and changing the narrative globally on how to tackle hunger, poverty, and climate change.

Read more about the film festival on our blog.

Addressing the Global Food Crisis Through Agroecology: A Series By Chris Sacco

Over the course of Summer 2022, Groundswell International’s Director of Program Management, Chris Sacco, published a four-part article series on LinkedIn examining the roots of the interconnected, worldwide food insecurity and environmental crises and the need to accelerate ecological farming methods as a means to address them.

Through the series, Chris offered a wealth of important information – including well-researched data – as he offered a critical look at the current, broken global food system and outlined the current food crisis, how the world has gotten to this point, and how we can reverse course. We feel this is an important read for anyone who cares about the future of our planet and the good of our fellow humans, as well as anyone who is interested in why we do the work that we do here at Groundswell International.

Learn more about Chris’ series on our blog and read all four parts on LinkedIn.

Global Conference 2022

During the week of September 19, Groundswell International gathered with our partners from fourteen different countries throughout the world in Andhra Pradesh, India, for our 2022 Global Conference.

The week included field visits and dialogue with the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming program (APCNF) to see how they are scaling agroecological transitions in that state and discuss how we can continue to learn from and collaborate with each other. We met with women farmers, learned about their wide network of self-help groups, and of various techniques to regenerate soil biology and land to improve production, lives, and climate resilience.

Read a message from our Executive Director, Steve Brescia, summarizing the trip on our blog. We will share more of our experiences and lessons learned from this gathering in 2023.

Farmers’ Knowledge and Seeds in Mexico: Food Solutions via Mexico Seed Project

In 2022, we completed a three-and-a-half-year program in southern Mexico focused on strengthening indigenous farming communities and local NGOs to improve the management of their native seed systems. Groundswell’s Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Edwin Escoto, provided an overview of the project, which “show[ed] us that feelings of empowerment are growing around working to strengthen local seed systems and bringing focus to those systems’ vital importance for families, not only for consumption, but also for food security”, and the results he witnessed in the field.

Read Edwin’s highlights of the Mexico Seed Project on our blog.

THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY: How Africa can Survive and Thrive

Groundswell International’s Director of Action Learning and Advocacy for West Africa, Peter Gubbels, contributed to “THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY: How Africa can Survive and Thrive,” a book in the Barefoot Guide Agroecology Series. Peter served as both a writer and editor for the book, which examines Africa’s diverse food systems and the impact they have experienced from the current climate crisis and the industrial food system. “The Climate Emergency” also shares stories of hope and regeneration as a result of the use of agroecology from farmers, pastoralists, fishers, indigenous peoples, women, and youth throughout the African continent.

Learn more about the book here, and read a free PDF version here.

“My Food is African: A Campaign to Improve Health and Support Farmers”

We always love to see our staff act to strengthen local alliances and movements, and Peter once again shared his knowledge on agroecology in Africa with IPPMedia for an article titled “My Food is African: A Campaign to Improve Health and Support Farmers”.

The article, which quotes Peter extensively, discusses the use of agroecology in Africa, the diverse food systems throughout the continent, and the effects of climate change and food industrialization. The article also includes Peter’s reflections on the Uganda meeting of the Citizens and Agroecology working group, which he attended.

Read the article here.

Report From The Field: Honduras

Groundswell International’s newest staff member, Chandi Guntupalli, Donor Relations Manager, hit the ground running and visited Honduras with Steve Brescia at the end of March 2022 for five days to meet with our partner, Vecinos Honduras, and discuss our plans for the Central American Dry Corridor.

Chandi documented her first trip into the field on our blog.

Report from the Field: Senegal & Mexico

This summer Groundswell International staff member Ethan Scully, Grants Manager, had the opportunity to witness two of our programs in action during trips to Oaxaca, Mexico, and Thiès, Senegal, that took place over the course of a couple of months. Though on completely different continents with completely different cultures, Ethan found that farmers in Oaxaca and Thiès shared “an overwhelming sense of solidarity and loyalty, not only with other members of their respective communities but also with the land they cultivate,” a testament to what makes agroecology a desirable option for rural communities throughout the globe.

Read more about Ethan’s experiences in the field in a report on our blog.

Support Groundswell International in furthering our progress in 2023

We’re so grateful to our partner organizations and the important work they do on the ground in the communities we serve. We’re also grateful to all those who support Groundswell International and our partners in doing this important work.

The progress we make each year is made possible by the financial contributions of supporters around the globe. If you’re passionate about increasing food security for rural communities, reversing the effects of climate change and food industrialization, and strengthening communities to build sustainable farming and food systems from the ground up, please consider donating to Groundswell International.

You can also support Groundswell’s efforts for free every time you shop at Amazon by using AmazonSmile. Simply go to smile.amazon.com and choose Groundswell International as your desired charity, or in the Amazon app find “Settings” in the main menu (☰) and tap on “AmazonSmile” to set your charity of choice. Make sure to visit smile.amazon.com each time you shop on Amazon, and Groundswell International will receive a donation for every qualifying purchase you make, at zero cost to you.

Thank you for joining us in our mission in 2022, we’ll see you in 2023 as we continue our work and share more stories of hope, resiliency, and sustainable solutions from the field!

Global Conference 2022

October 4, 2022

During the week of September 19, Groundswell International gathered with our partners from fourteen different countries throughout the world in the Anantapuramu district of Andhra Pradesh, India for our 2022 Global Conference.

The week also included field visits throughout Anantapuramu, where government support has enabled Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RSS) to create a practice of community-managed natural farming that serves as a model for India, to observe the agroecological practices of the communities there. We met with women farmers, learning of their involvement in self-help groups within the community. We learned about the farmer-to-farmer network laid out for sharing resources as well as the various natural farming technologies in use.

Below is a message from Executive Director, Steve Brescia, summarizing the trip.

Friends,

We just returned from a phenomenal Groundswell International global conference in India – jet-lagged, but super-charged. We were generously hosted by the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming program (APCNF), perhaps the largest agroecology program in the world, and were able to visit and learn from women’s groups, farmers, and rural communities. We also finished shaping Groundswell’s next Strategic Framework (2023-27), based on our planning process begun over a year ago.

Nothing is easy in the world these days, but through mutual support and sheer tenacity we were able to gather 28 people (from 14 countries), representing our member organizations, staff, board, and allies. We overcame the challenges of political unrest and violence in multiple countries, COVID-19, delayed transit visas, air traffic controller strikes, high ticket costs, and last-minute travel diversions and lost luggage. While we’ve gotten pretty good at virtual coordination over the last few years, gathering together revitalized our human connections, energy and insights for the collective work ahead.

We are grateful to Vijay Kumar, who directs the APCNF program, and his great team for their support. The APCNF program is built on strong social organizing – years of strengthening a vast network of women’s self-help groups (over 160,000 SHGs involved so far). It supports them to test, adapt and spread effective agroecological principles and practices, farmer-to-farmer, as they work towards their vision of reaching 8 million farmers and farm workers and regenerating 8 million hectares of degraded land in the state of Andhra Pradesh by 2031.

Many of the APCNF strategies resonate strongly with those of Groundswell’s member NGOs in West Africa, the Americas, and South Asia. What is profoundly different in Andhra Pradesh is the strong government commitment and to support millions of smallholder farmers to make the transition from chemical based to agroecological farming to sustainably improve their lives.

As is always the case, exposure to other experiences shines a light on our own. It generates insights about how we can improve what we are doing now, and what larger possibilities exist. One way we plan to follow up is by coordinating small groups of farmers in 10 countries in West Africa, the Americas and South Asia to experiment with and adapt some key techniques to catalyze soil biology, productivity, and carbon sequestration. Farmers will validate what works for them in their contexts, and what can be spread to others.

We also look forward to sharing with you Groundswell’s updated Strategic Framework in the coming months. Among other things, over the next five years we’ll build on our current successes and work to increase leadership opportunities for women, better mobilize youth, and strengthen territorial strategies to build healthy economies and climate change resilience based on agroecology.

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” I’ve heard others comment recently that imagination may be the resource we lack most in the world today. The world is in crisis because we are locked into extractive ways of producing and living that have led us here. Can we use imagination and collaborative work to make different choices, to spread real and regenerative solutions that already exist?

We see it happening. In rural communities, agroecological farmers are working to create a critical mass of effective alternatives, that can catalyze change at community and landscape levels. Women come together in self-help groups, building a sense of mutual support and collective power, and taking action to improve their land and lives. We felt that same spirit of local solidarity and trust in our global gathering, along with our allies from Andhra Pradesh.

We are part of a wider movement creating very real and hopeful alternatives. As we left our gathering and returned each to our own countries, to local action and virtual coordination, we carry forward a great sense of what is possible in creating from the ground up farming and food systems that are healthier for people and the planet.

| Help us continue to support voices in the field.

Report from the Field: Senegal & Mexico

July 14, 2022

By: Ethan Scully

If you’d asked me a few months ago – “What do Oaxaca, Mexico, and Thiès, Senegal, have in common?” – I might have assumed it was a trick question. What could these North American and West African regions, which speak different languages and are located on opposite sides of the globe, possibly share with each other? Now, thanks to the generosity of our in-country partners and the small farmers they support, I can begin to tell you.

I joined Groundswell in October 2020, and ever since then, I’d been waiting for a chance to see just one of our programs in action. Now, in the span of two months, I’ve had the opportunity to see two!

At the end of May 2021, Steve Brescia, Christopher Sacco, and I traveled to Thiès for Groundswell West Africa’s Regional Conference and to meet with our colleagues from Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, and, of course, Senegal. With Agrécol Afrique hosting, Groundswell’s West Africa network partners had an invaluable opportunity to meet and share lessons, experiences, and results from the various programs they’d been implementing over the past year, while also discussing plans for years to come. Having studied French for a couple of years and spending a semester in France during college, I was excited to be putting it to use again and felt comfortable despite the fact I was on an entirely new continent.

After two days in the conference room, it was finally time to go out into the field and see everything that, until then, I’d only been able to see on paper. Over the next three days, Agrécol took all of us to agroecological market gardens, a processing facility, and a restaurant, all owned and operated by women’s savings and credit groups, who, with Agrécol’s aid were inspired to come together and make better lives for themselves and their families. What I saw in the field made it clear this type of food system truly supports and uplifts those who labor, as well as the environment.

Almost a month later, Steve and I were off again, this time to Oaxaca to attend the closing meeting of Catalyzing Resilient Farmer Seed Systems in Mexico, a project carried out by eight organizations across three Mexican states, with the support of the WK Kellogg Foundation. Here, the various farmers and organizations involved would come together to exchange knowledge and lessons learned throughout the project’s duration.

Now, if I said I was comfortable in Senegal because of my French, let me just say it was the complete opposite in Mexico. I started taking Spanish lessons about 3 months ago, and the thought of having to speak it with anybody other than my tutor was, shall we say, disconcerting. Imagine how I felt when on my first night there, my colleague, Groundswell’s Regional Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Edwin Escoto told me I would be taking an hour-long bus ride to Nochixtlan at 6:00 in the morning to tag along on some farm visits to get the farmers’ thoughts on how the project went and their hopes for the future.

That didn’t exactly put my fears to rest, but as soon as I hopped off the bus, I was made to feel at home by my colleagues at Centro de Desarrollo Integral Campesino de la Mixteca (CEDICAM), who encouraged me to stumble through half-broken Spanish sentences over breakfast, just like the amazing hosts they are. If there’s one thing I’ll take away from this trip, it will be the amazing hospitality I was shown by everyone who was kind enough to welcome me into their home or serve me a hot meal.

Throughout the rest of the week, now with Steve and Edwin there to translate for me, we were able to witness extremely powerful conversations between farmers from across the country living in similarly harsh conditions, all turning to agroecology as a means to reclaim cultural traditions and secure their future economic and food security. It was astounding to see everything they’d accomplished over the past three years and extremely encouraging to hear about what they already had planned for the future.

Now to return to the original question – “What do Thiès, Senegal, and Oaxaca, Mexico, have in common?” To me, the answer is as clear as a glass of Mezcal, something I was also lucky enough to share with my hosts in Oaxaca. The farmers I met in both regions have an overwhelming sense of solidarity and loyalty, not only with other members of their respective communities, but also with the land they cultivate, and industrial agricultural systems have completely ignored these two basic building blocks of a healthy food system.

I believe this speaks to why agroecology is often seen as such a desirable alternative for rural communities aiming to reclaim their sense of autonomy from external actors directly or indirectly destroying their land and cultural heritage in exchange for short-term profits. As intersecting environmental and economic crises continue to impact communities living at the frontlines of climate change, we must remember that those best positioned to design and implement solutions are often the ones who are impacted by them on a daily basis. I’ve been fortunate enough to witness this truth firsthand, and it’s part of my work with Groundswell to share this as far and wide as possible, and I look forward to doing so with the help of my colleagues and our network partners around the world.

Groundswell’s 2021 Annual Report: Highlights

May 6, 2022

Each year, we release our annual report to illustrate the impact our organization and our partner organizations have had on sparking change in rural communities around the world. In 2021, the world continued to be plagued by crises, but we witnessed and were inspired by the resiliency of people who have committed to improving the lives of their neighbors and communities.

A few highlights from the 2021 Annual Report

In Honduras, Groundswell is collaborating with Vecinos Honduras to promote and scale ground-up alternatives that can reverse decades of extractive agricultural practices; political and economic dysfunction; and extreme vulnerability to climate change, including persistent drought and devastating hurricanes. We are working with 52 communities and over 10,250 people to support agroecological farming on eroded mountainsides; to improve family nutrition and incomes; and to strengthen community-based organizations and cooperative enterprises to regenerate local livelihoods and rural economies, with women and young people playing leading roles.
In Nepal, we are working with our partner, BBP-Pariwar, to form and strengthen women’s solidarity groups for mutual support and action-learning to improve their lives and communities. The women are adapting and spreading to other families agroecological techniques like worm composting and biological fertilizers and pesticides; diversifying farms by planting fodder and fruit tree seedlings; developing community seed banks; and improving household vegetable gardens, rainwater harvesting, and small livestock management.
In Senegal, together with our partner organization Agrecol Afrique, we are promoting and spreading strategies to address the collapse of soil fertility and livelihoods in the Sahel, and reverse the extreme vulnerability of rural communities. Working in the ecologically fragile, risk-prone Kaffrine region, we are supporting a local movement to spread farmer-managed natural regeneration of trees (FMNR), dry-season vegetable gardening, and other techniques to regenerate soil fertility and food production. Over 1,660 women have gained access to land, water, and training, and are regenerating degraded land for dry-season-vegetable gardening.
In 2021, we piloted our Youth Storytellers program with our network partners ANSD in Burkina Faso and Vecinos Honduras in Latin America. We supported them 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. These young people are using communications to drive positive social change, and gaining a sense of agency as they recognize, document, and strengthen the power of community-based organizations to spread real solutions. While Youth Storytellers are sharing their videos locally through social media and gatherings, we are finalizing over 15 videos to allow them to shape the narrative internationally in 2022.

You can hear the voices and watch their stories here.

To learn more about the work our partners are carrying out in their local communities, the support that Groundswell International provides, and to see a breakdown of our 2021 financials by the number, read our complete 2021 annual report.

A Revolution of Accountability and Transparency

November 25, 2020

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” There has perhaps never been a time when these words, often attributed to George Orwell, resonate more than they do today. Groundswell International does not advocate for revolution in the traditional sense, but we do support radical transparency and accountability to donors, partners, and the people we serve, and if that is a revolutionary act, so be it.

Groundswell’s founders created a bottom-up, network organizational structure that seeks to be truly accountable and transparent to the people we serve, to our partners around the world, and to the thousands of supporters who make our work possible. We continually strive to improve upon our structure and operating model in keeping with these principles and to bring our innovative approaches to scale.

To this point, we have:

Undertaken annual financial audits. Since 2010, Groundswell has hired third party, certified public accountants to audit our organization’s finances;
Implemented a robust planning, monitoring and evaluation system, which reliably generates information that we use to make decisions to improve program quality and provide accurate, timely reports to donors;
Maintained a nonprofit profile on GuideStar. In 2020, we achieved the Platinum Seal of Transparency, the highest level of recognition GuideStar awards; and,
Adopted the Donor Bill of Rights. Earlier this year, our Board of Directors adopted the Donor Bill of Rights to underscore Groundswell’s commitment to uphold the highest levels of trust and transparency to the people who make our work possible.

Moving forward, we pledge to continue to center our work and operations around the values of accountability and transparency. There has never been a more important time to reaffirm our commitment to these values. We believe they are essential to building the long-term relationships of trust and collaboration required to do effective development work. Moreover, we believe that nonprofits have the responsibility to set an example and to contribute to restoring these values to their rightful place in our society.

As we draw nearer to the close of a difficult year around the globe, we urge everyone to consider the role we all play in working to improve the lives around us through compassion, action, truth, and empathy. We may grow weary of the struggles of today, but we know that others have been in strife daily for generations and will continue to face challenges tomorrow. We, together, have the opportunity and global responsibility to affect real change by advocating for policy, sharing knowledge, securing resources, and sharing stories of our neighbors around the world. That’s exactly the kind of work we have been doing over the last decade, and with help from like-minded change-makers including donors, partner agencies, and board members, will continue to do,

Let’s move ahead, together.

Accountability

Support Groundswell International in furthering our progress in 2023

Friends,

| Help us continue to support voices in the field.

A few highlights from the 2021 Annual Report

Footer

Follow Us: