Our friends at As Green As It Gets published some great articles in its February newsletter. See the excerpts below, and click here to read the entire thing!
Our Lendees Are Now Lenders: The coffee farmers have historically been the biggest recipient of our small business loans. Some of the more established farmers have reached a point where they are financially stable enough to be lenders. The farmers’ collective loaned cash to the community to create 18 new home stays in San Miguel Escobar. This started with seed money from As Green As It Gets, but is now managed and financed entirely by the community…
Effort Beyond Charity: Two of our girls were exhausted—the desperate screaming of chickens being plucked had awoken them at 5 a.m. Another had biting ants swarm up her pant leg. The blisters I got from the machetes and hoes were bleeding freely. All in all, we found out very quickly that life at Columbia had not necessarily prepared us for the hard existence of the coffee farmers of Guatemala. However, according to Timoteo Minas, one of our host farmers from our eight-day trip this winter break, coffee farmers are far better off now than they were five years ago, when they began working with As Green As It Gets…
Addressing the Link Between Poverty and Deforestation: Deep in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle is the Ixcan community – displaced by the army during the civil war, neglected by the government and forgotten by society. Taming the forest is the only way that they have been able to survive. They have already lost 1,200 hectares of rainforest to slash and burn agriculture. Without your help they will lose the remaining part of their rainforest in 10 years…
Click here to read the rest of the February newsletter.
Comments are closed.