Carmela Francisca Sacuj Matzar is a leader among Mayan women in San Andrés Semetabaj, a poor rural community in central Guatemala. As the founder of Asociación Visión Maya Mujeres, a women’s association that produces textiles and cultivates mushrooms, Sacuj is helping 50 women to generate income and improve the…
El Petén has long suffered as one of Guatemala’s poorest areas despite its bounty of natural resources. Two thirds of El Petén’s residents live below the poverty line and half lack sanitary services. Many of the children living in this area are severely malnourished, jeopardizing Guatemala’s future generations. Gladis Rodriguez…
In early 2001, much of El Salvador was devastated by massive landslides. Thousands of already poor farming families in the highlands were left homeless and destitute. Ana Rosa Graf, an architect from San Salvador, joined the rebuilding efforts. But she soon realized that without sustainable livelihoods, people would still struggle…
The Jorge Salazar Cooperative, located in the northern municipality of El Tuma-La Dalia, is a collective of 46 farmers – mostly veterans of Nicaragua’s civil war in the 1980s, which devastated the country’s economy. In an effort to incorporate ex-guerillas back into civilian society, TechnoServe – with the support of…
Intibucá, in southwestern Honduras, enjoys a favorable climate for farming, yet is one of the country's poorest regions. Most area farmers own less than three acres, but in the past decade, they have improved their lot by planting market crops like cauliflower, broccoli and lettuce, and by organizing a…
Since trading their guns for plows at the end of the Nicaraguan civil war, Modesto Reyes and his fellow coffee farmers have transformed the community of Pueblo Nuevo, with better health services and new education facilities for its children and stable livelihoods for hundreds of men and women. Reyes…
Nicaraguan farmers Filadelfo Sotelo and his son Cesar Eduardo Sotelo had very little time to spend with their family. They worked long hours farming crops such as beans, corn, tomatoes, and passion fruit. They also performed odd jobs just to make ends meet. Despite this, they never…
When coffee prices tumbled to record lows earlier this decade, the livelihoods of thousands of Central American farmers were suddenly jeopardized. So TechnoServe identified a new opportunity for them: high-quality commercial and specialty coffees that could fetch premium prices in the changing market. With support from the Inter-American Development…
Hundreds of thousands of poor rural residents depend on the Nicaraguan dairy industry for their livelihoods. But low-quality milk and limited marketing and management skills prevent many of the businesses in this sector from gaining access to good markets. The San Francisco de Asís dairy farmer cooperative wanted to…
In 2005, Hurricane Stan struck Guatemala, destroying crops and homes. The losses spelled particular hardship for indigenous communities with little education or resources. For an entrepreneurial farmer named Manuel Yax, this crisis simply reinforced his resolve to follow through on his dream: running a business that would generate economic…
