One of my favorite bloggers/journalists, Xeni Jardin, was back in Guatemala recently and created this inaugural piece for a new series on Boing Boing TV.
[BBtv World] will feature first-person glimpses of life around the world, told through the lenses and voices of Boing Boing editors, guest collaborators — and through the people in these places, their own stories, their own way. When we can, we want to place the camera directly in the hands — literally — of the people whose lives, cultures, and lands we’re visiting.
We’re kicking this off with an episode I shot during a recent visit in a K’iche Maya village in the highlands of Guatemala. I go there a few times a year to work on sustainable development projects with an international nonprofit managed with local indigenous leaders.
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The K’iche girls you see in this episode helped me shoot some of what you see. In future episodes, they’ll tell their stories themselves.
Here is updated information on our programs. If you’ve been following us for a long time, a lot of this will be familiar to you. If you’re just finding out about us (Hi!), this is the crux of what we’re trying to do and how we are trying to do it.
Overview:
The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) creates and incubates small-to-medium enterprises that provide underserved communities in developing countries with affordable, locally produced and environmentally sound technologies to meet their energy, sanitation and water needs.
We provide our businesses with financing in the $10,000 to $100,000 range. Recognizing that capital is not the only barrier that prevents engineering talent/budding entrepreneurs in emerging markets from forming such businesses, we also provide business training, technical training, legal assistance as well as help navigating government bureaucracy.
By operating in the missing middle, i.e. providing more funding than a micro-finance institution, but less than mid-scale investor, we target a level of service provider that is vital to the development of local economies. Our businesses can create jobs and deliver services that can be transformative for families and communities, but that are too large for an informal sector micro-entrepreneur and too small for a major government development initiative.
We have three primary programs: Incubation, Education, and Outreach. While these three programs have a high level of interdependence and rely heavily on each other for execution, the core of AIDG is the incubation program. We currently maintain operations in Guatemala and Haiti.
Incubation Program:
The goal of AIDG’s incubation program is the creation of independent locally owned enterprises that can serve the infrastructure needs of impoverished communities using appropriate technology and market mechanisms. Currently the focus of this program is the formation of enterprises in the arenas of Energy, Water and Sanitation. Future arenas under consideration include Communications, Housing, Transportation and Agricultural Processing.
The incubation program relies on a 2-3 year agreement between AIDG and a locally owned formal sector company (either pre-existent or that we help entrepreneurs form) that combines technical training, investment, and service contracts. After the incubation period a member of AIDG’s team retains a seat on the business board of directors for a standard board term. We operate the program through five steps, Talent and Opportunity Identification, Program Related Investment Lending, Tools and Equipment Provision, Training and Research, Contracted Services:
I) Talent and Opportunity Identification
The identification of talent and local business opportunities in the small-scale infrastructure sector is one of the areas where AIDG sets itself apart from other SME lenders. Our community partnerships with civil society, community leaders and local university and business groups, formed through our outreach program, have given us a tremendous network of referrals for local talent and potential business opportunities. We have leveraged these networks to create a catalog of unmet community needs/business opportunities as well qualified human resources who can solve these problems.
As we expand the number of enterprises we can support and the number of businesses we incubate, we anticipate that our opportunity and candidate stream will only grow. We foresee significant growth in our enterprise incubation both in replicating businesses we have experience with (e.g. establishing another stove manufacturer in a new region) or expanding to meet new demands brought to us by our constituent networks (e.g. establishing a producer of no head hydroelectric systems for the Peten).
Market opportunities and technologies are reviewed in group meetings and are scored in a competition matrix based on price point, market demand assessed through community surveys, cost saving impacts for communities, viability within local material streams, and manufacturability. Technologies are tested up to a year through outreach projects and community feedback before they are placed into consideration for an enterprise.
Individual candidate or enterprise vetting is accomplished through a multistage interview process. Local human resource and business conditions influence the decision of whether to go work with a group of entrepreneurs of a previously established business. For example, XelaTeco was founded with electrical and mechanical engineers who were underemployed in industries ranging from weaving to beer bottling. They were coalesced into a new company because there were no local renewable energy companies that could be strengthened into doing micro-hydroelectric systems. By comparison, where we are based in Haiti, the pool of qualified entrepreneurs is more constrained, partially due to limitations of the educational system. There, we are looking to train several existing enterprises who engage in traditional sanitation work in the installation of Biogas systems. Additionally, the legal process for establishing a formal sector business in Haiti is 3 to 4 times longer than it is in Guatemala.
II) Investment Lending
We provide our businesses with financing in the $10,000 to $100,000 range. The amount of the loan depends on the scale and scope of the enterprise. The interest rate (fixed) of most AIDG loans ranges from 0% to 5%. The lent capital is divided into a series of disbursements granted over the incubation period. No interest is accrued until the end of the incubation period. The companies having the option of paying down the principal at any time.
The loans have very generous repayment terms and schedules to accommodate the enterprises we support, which operate in difficult market environments. Since our goal is enterprise success and not fund return, loans made by AIDG are intentionally below market rate. We attempt to use the loans as an extension of our training for the enterprises, to help them develop their revenue sources and the fiscal discipline to be able to approach larger investors as needed for future stages of expansion. For those future stages of funding we hope our PRI fund will to allow AIDG to act as a guarantor with local capital partners, such as banks or other SME lenders such as E+Co, Acumen Fund, S3IDF, Agora Partnerships or Root Capital.
With XelaTeco, our first enterprise, lent capital was derived from AIDG’s unrestricted funds/donations. We are in the process of attracting funding to build a restricted program related investment fund. We are building the fund initially with donations and grants. We hope eventually to fulfill SEC requirements to be able to attract social investors seeking returns. This fund is not for general operations use, though provisions have been made such that the board can vote for emergency disbursements in case of fiscal crises that pose a threat to organizational continuity. Loans from this fund will be presented to the board for approval quarterly.
III) Tools and Equipment Provision
Most of the enterprises that we aim to incubate require some level of specialized equipment (e.g. foundries, milling machines, computer aided circuit design software). AIDG provides an equipment grant of $2,000 to $25,000 of either purchased or donated equipment to help the enterprise get itself on its feet.
IV) Training and Research
Our training services are at the core of our incubation program. It is easy to find a welder or civil engineer or electrician in Guatemala, but pulling those individuals together into an enterprise than can install a village scale hydroelectric system requires technical training, aid in negotiating legal processes and training in business and project management.
Our training involves direct mentor pairing between members of our internship program and member of the enterprise. To date this has revolved around skills assessment and skill building exercises in both technical and business realms, ranging anywhere from electronics to accounting. We are in the process of developing a standardized training curriculum for each skill set. Additionally, we are working with teams of experienced professionals who can come to the field for shorter terms and give very specific skills based training to augment the intern mentorships. For example we are bringing down experienced foundry workers to improve XelaTeco’s metal casting skills. We also contract local experts to give trainings where appropriate, for instance on Guatemalan Tax Law and Health Care requirements.
We retain legal services to start the enterprises but have found many of the barriers to enterprise formation in the bureaucracy are reduced the more contact you have with the officials. By incubating many enterprises we develop an advantage in corporate filings, shipping and receiving, telecommunications provision, etc. that an individual entrepreneur entering the formal sector for the first time would not have. Leveraging the same local vendors across multiple companies also gives us an advantage in securing better pricing and deals for the new enterprises.
AIDG also acts as a research and development arm for our incubated enterprises working to solve individual technical challenges based on customer feedback and ideas about product improvement.
V) Contracted Services
Much of AIDG’s outreach work is accomplished through the contracting of our incubated enterprises to perform infrastructure projects in local communities. This both provides us with real world environments to train business team as the enterprise is getting started. It also builds awareness of AIDG’s work and programs in the region and serves direct charitable purposes for schools, daycares, orphanages and other community organizations. During the 2 to 3 year incubation period of AIDG businesses, the enterprises are responsible for implementation and product delivery while AIDG acts as project manager and monitors project quality on contracted work. Outside of this period, the businesses do both project management and execution.
Occasionally we will contract the incubated enterprise to work in partnership with another NGO for the pilot or demonstration phases of a potentially longer-term contract for our enterprises. For instance, we are funding a portion of a solar installation by XelaTeco at a radio station in partnership with another NGO that maintains a network of 140 community radio stations in Guatemala. The pilot should lead to a significant long-term contract for the enterprise.
Education Program:
The Education program relies on AIDG bringing down experienced engineering and business students and professionals to work directly with our incubated enterprises. We have a steady stream of graduate students from Stanford, Harvard, Tufts, MIT, Berkeley, Michigan Tech, and other institutions who commit 3 to 9 months working on with our enterprises on skills building and novel technology research and design. This educational exchange goes both ways, building skills in our incubated enterprises as well as educating the university students about the challenges of working in resourced constrained environments in developing countries.
Our research work primarily revolves around adapting appropriate technology solutions to local supply chains and the introduction of technologies that are established in other regions, but are new to our areas. For example there are millions of biogas systems throughout India, but only a few dozen in Haiti. Unfortunately a standard fiberglass dome KVIC biodigester design from India cannot be reproduced in Haiti due to a poor supply chain for fiberglass. Interns prototype and develop new or adapted designs that can be taken to production quality by our incubated enterprises.
This focus on design around local materials and teaching engineering students to adapt to local conditions has attracted the attention numerous groups doing more traditional design at the bottom of the pyramid work in the states. As a result we have worked with EWB San Francisco, Humdinger Wind Energy, UC Berkeley, and MIT D-Lab on multiple design projects. Our community partnerships through our outreach program have given us numerous locations to field test emerging technologies and evaluate real world effectiveness.
AIDG is working to try and strengthen its physical resources in Guatemala to have a proper test and development center for students and groups interested in design for the other 90%. We hope that as our incubation program grows we will be able to leverage research done in this center across multiple enterprises and multiple regions.
Outreach Program
AIDG’s outreach program is aimed at providing services to communities and community organizations. As stated earlier, the vast majority of our outreach work is accomplished through contracting of our incubated enterprises. The work contracted by our enterprises helps us leverage volunteer resources effectively and guarantee high quality results to our constituents. For example stoves contracted from and manufactured by XelaTeco can be installed by a TecoTour team and then put through performance and community feedback testing for model design revision by engineering interns. Short-term visiting engineers generally lack the real world production and construction sills that we work to develop in our incubated businesses. The workmanship also has the guarantee and consistency of the incubated enterprise.
Additionally we will do outreach in response to natural disasters. After Hurricane Stan, we contracted XelaTeco to produce several hundred emergency camping stoves to be distributed with food aid and to perform electrical repairs in residences hit by flooding and mudslides.
As I mentioned earlier this week, the illustrious Katie Bliss is back in the UK, but here is her intern profile with her impressions of life in Guatemala and interning with AIDG.
Name
Katie Bliss
Where were you Based?
Xela, Guatemala
What was your intern project?
Community Outreach and Partnerships
Describe what your normal day as an AIDG intern in like.
There really is no normal day! I could be in a community meeting, talking with the people about their needs and resources for potential projects, holding a workshop (to discuss issues such as health, sustainability, providing an opportunity to use and understand the technolgy better) or helping on a community install. Other days I am in the office of local and international NGOs, working to build up XelaTeco’s network and set up potential contracts, or in the XelaTeco workshop helping Maria Natalia and Maricela work on the stove credit scheme. It’s all pretty exciting!
What are the main challenges you face?
Unfortunately bureaucracy and poor communication can be real barriers to getting things done efficiently and thus require a lot of patience and definitely a change of pace! Additionally, road access into remote communities can be pretty poor and occasionally necessitates an arduous journey and perhaps a hike to cover a relatively short distance. Though I can hardly complain in a country as lush and beautiful as Guatemala!
What has been the most rewarding moment for you?
An awesome moment just before I left Guatemala. I was going with XelaTeco to take back an old generator from the former finca owners’ micro-hydro system that they had been contracted to repair by La Florida. La Florida is a community-owned finca (coffee farm) that we have been collaborating with on tests and research.
As we arrived many members of the community were eagerly awaiting us; they had been without power for nearly a year. For those that were still working in the fields or in the houses, they rang the community bell and called ‘Hay que trabajar‘ - We have to work. Men, women, children and the elderly came out of the woodwork. They all helped to carry the generator down to the turbine house or to cheer their compañeros on!. The atmosphere was magic. For me, it summed up the passion, energy and hard work that, over 20 years, has seen the people of La Florida leave the large exploitative privately owned fincas, to fight for their own land and work together to build a sustainable, profitable and socially-just finca.
[Sorry folks, Flickr doesn’t let you rotate video. I’ll give it another whirl in the future.]
That night, La Florida had light for the first time in nearly a year, and the finca was abuzz with excitement. As community members met in the patrones house (like almost every night!) discussing, issues such as food security, potential coffee markets and new projects, they were lit by power produced by their own hydro-electric system. Another step on their path to create a more sustainable, happier and healthier life for their children, and their children’s children…..amazing!
Who have you met who has inspired you the most and why?
I have met so many passionate, hard-working and inspirational Guatemalans who have dedicated their lives to building a better Guatemala. This includes Jose Ordonez at AIDG / XelaTeco, who is a discerning worker, enthusiastic about appropriate technology and its development in Guatemala, Dona Katrina one of the original founders of the Mayan Association Pop Atziak (who work particularly on empowering women, enterprise incubating small enterprises and medical projects) and almost without saying all the people at La Florida. But there are many, many more!
Why did you choose AIDG?
I have a background in the community renewable energy field in the UK, but felt that the benefits would be farther reaching in communities that were currently off-grid, reducing fuel dependence, facilitating local enterprise, self-sufficiency and community empowerment. In addition, AIDG’s model of working through social enterprise, using local materials and locally appropriate design (according to needs, culture and available skills) is very simple and necessary, but something a lot of other organisations have failed to consider.
What inspired you about the organization?
Watching XelaTeco grow over the last year has been fantastic. We have seen them take on real ownership and pride in their business. They are taking up new schemes such as micro-credit for customers, educational workshops and learning how to manufacture new technologies with enthusiasm and drive. Many of them are still young, and I am sure it has been a steep learning curve. I am certain, however, that XelaTeco will continuing thriving into a sustainable and profitable business, whilst helping to improve infrastructure in Guatemala.
Update: I am now back in the UK researching landfill gas opportunities in Mexico and Argentina, but am hoping to return to Xela if we are successful in an application for community owned and managed micro-hydro systems. I will also be giving presentations on AIDG and our Guatemala projects at community sustainability fairs in the UK this summer. I plan to stay in the AIDG loop and for sure will stay in touch with the guys at XelaTeco and in Boston.
A pre-measured template is used to cut the pieces to form the outer bracket
The bracket will support a standard 2-ring plancha
The bracket pieces are fit and welded together
The sheet metal sides and bottom are riveted to the bracket
Cutouts are made in the front and rear for the combustion chamber and chimney
Baldosa tile is cut and assembled to form the rocket combustion chamber
Combustion chamber: side view
Combustion chamber: rear view
Combustion chamber: front view (without the front panel)
Pumice stones are separated by size
The stove body is filled with pumice, with larger pieces at the bottom and smaller pieces at the top
A small smoke chamber is created in front of the chimney using Baldosa
The plancha is set on top. Clay can be used to fill the gaps around the side of the plancha to keep smoke from escaping and to provide insulation to prevent heat being conducted from the plancha surface to the stove body.
I come to you from Cap Haitien, Haiti where we are at work on AIDG- Haiti’s first biodigester. The majority of the biodigesters construction techniques have been developed in Guatemala but are being tried out here to make the technology more appropriate for Haiti.
Right before coming to Haiti, however, I was in Pachalum, Guatemala (Department of Quiche) working on the first of three biodigesters that AIDG is building in the community. AIDG and the municipality of Pachalum have entered into a unique project relationship. AIDG, Pachalum, and the families who will be receiving biodigesters are equally shouldering the costs associated with the project. The owners of the first digester, Don Ramiro and his family, will begin filling it with animal waste created from their pig farm. The Ramiros don’t currently have electricity and are looking forward to the benefits that their biodigester will bring. They are also excited to have one of the first biodigesters in the area.
The pigs on the Ramiro farm are used in the family restaurant, “La Casa de los Chicharonnes”, making the biodigester site long-term stable. A problem that we’ve observed with single family biodigesters is that the owners’ tend to sell off the animals that feed the digester in times of need. Once there is no waste to put in the digester, the system will stop producing gas after about a month. Undigested waste will settle to the bottom of the tank. The loads of settled out waste have to be removed before the digester could be put back on line.
Don Ramiro is less likely to reduce the number of animals he has unless his business closes down. So, we’ll be recommending “La Casa de Los Chicharonnes” to everyone to make sure that it doesn’t close!
Completed Biodigester at Don Ramiro’s
I’m using many of the techniques that were developed in Pachalum here in Haiti as we construct the biodigester. The system is being built at Project Pierre Toussaint, a center for Cap Haitien’s street boys. The center takes in street boys of all ages and shelters them, feeds them and gives them a hands-on practical education. It’s a very inspiring place to work.
After the digester is complete here, I will return to AIDG- Guatemala to finish up the project in Pachalum and build a biodigester for AIDG’s new educational center in Xela. We hope to use some new ideas for this installation that incorporate aspects from both the floating dome and fixed dome designs.
We’ve made multiple improvements to the design over the course of the technology development in Guatemala and Haiti:
We are now using a removable wood form for the construction of the concrete biodigester tank. The use of reusable forms is dropping the overall cost of the system and allowing it to be constructed more quickly and with much greater consistency in the shape of the tank. The removable wood form, when assembled looks like a giant wine aging barrel.
We are now encapsulating the fiberglass/sheet metal dome in a PVC frame that acts as part of the guide system to ensure the dome floats directly up and down as gas is produced and consumed. The PVC capsule carries all the structural forces so this is also a step in the direction of removing the sheet metal core from the dome. Removing the sheet metal/flat iron core would greatly reduce the overall cost of the system and also remove the potential of problems arising from zinc galvanization leaching into the digester and disrupting the process.
Interior Wood Form being used to Construct the Digester Tank
The wood form wrapped in HDPE, ready for the exterior form to be placed around it.
Making the concrete digester tank at Project Pierre Toussaint
What is your intern project?
My project has been improving the Pelton turbine design of the micro-hydro system and helping XelaTeco build its capacity to produce bronze turbines in house. The first part of my job was learning everything about our first install at Nueva Alianza, what worked about the turbine and what needed improvement. We modified the cup design and wanted to get three standardized sizes of turbine for XelaTeco to produce. Once the design modifications were complete, I had to figure out how we were going to make these cups out of bronze here in Guatemala. Cups for the Nueva Alianza turbine were made in Huehuetenango by an experienced foundry caster and members of the XelaTeco team. My current work has involved determining what type of casting is most feasible here, creating a production scheme that has a reasonable time scale, learning to make sand molds, and building a furnace and a burner.
Modified Pelton turbine - Solidworks
Describe what your normal day as an AIDG intern is like.
Normal is definitely a bit hard to come by in Guatemala, so in general I’d have to say my day is varied. My days involve everything from emailing with metal and foundry experts in the US to sourcing materials by walking and taking micro-buses all over Xela to firing up the furnace and pouring some molten metal. My days tend to also include fixing computers at some point, making sand molds or constructing something while making jokes with the guys at XelaTeco. Some of my favorite days are when I get to go out to communities to do installation work or site evaluation, which involves traipsing through rivers. The thing that happens with the most regularity to be honest is refracion, Guatemalan snack time at 10:30am, which I either enjoy with XelaTeco or go out and find snacks for the whole AIDG office.
What are the main challenges you face?
The main challenges I face center on the fact that I’m in Guatemala. It can be hard to find materials and that can get even trickier with the foreign language involved because some things don’t translate directly. The pace of the country is different, so I have to learn when to be patient because there is no other option and when to push because I only have so long down here. The other major challenge is trying to figure out how to help XelaTeco and give them the capacity to produce these technologies, while insuring that they feel ownership of their business and gain independence.
What has been the most rewarding moment for you?
It’s hard to think that one moment has been the most rewarding in my time here. Seeing my project progress and XelaTeco grow is something that I can really only see by looking at the span of my time here. If I had to pick one moment it would probably be the day that I fired up my propane burner for the first time, set up some Baldosa bricks and successfully melted a bronze elbow I had tracked down from at a metal recycler. That was the moment it was clear everything could work: the burner and the brick would work for the furnace. I had already found local sand and clay for making the molds. It was the moment when all the pieces were finally there and all that was left was to put them together.
Who have you met who has inspired you the most and why?
I have been inspired by a number of people in a number of ways during my time here. The people who I work with every day have been amazing because I often find that rather how hard something is to do or the odds that this install will work exactly the way they are planned are focused on how to get something done and working right. We’ve all had setbacks and I’ve seen everyone push through them because they believe what they are doing is going to help. The other people that inspire me are the community members- what I remember one man telling me that the reason the community had taken out the loan, bought the land and was willing to live in poverty was so that their children could live a better life. To hear him see past all the struggles he was living towards the future was incredibly moving.
Why did you choose AIDG? What inspired you about the model?
I chose AIDG because there are so many stories about technology being put in places and then falling into disrepair when foreign aid leaves. By building a business the local people are truly empowered to maintain these technologies and the use of local materials insures that things can fixed or replaced if they break. There is a phone number to call when something breaks and some one who speaks the language and lives in the country on the other end of the line. The model also demands that sustainable technology make economic sense, which is also the only way I think it will ever really take hold.
Deep in the remote highlands of Quiche, Guatemala lies the Ixil Maya community of Chel, where villagers are managing their own 165kW micro-hydro system, supplying power to over 400 households, through community enterprise. The Asociacion Hidroelectrica Chelense (AHC) is responsible for administration, operation and maintenance of the energy services scheme and is believed to be the first time that an indigenous people’s organization has benefited from the global carbon credit market.
We visited last week, with our local partners Fundacion Solar, a local NGO that has been active since 1995 promoting renewable energy and Saul Santos of Intervida Guatemala to learn more.
As we arrived there was a buzz in the air. Children were dressed in their finest traditional traje and the streets were lined with pine needles. The special occasion was the change over of the Junta Directiva (Board of Directors) of the AHC, which had been voted in democratically by the community. It was inspiring to see the level of community investment in the project, as we sat and watched the ceremony in the main square.
The changing of the Junta Directiva in the Parque Central
An essential theme of the project in Chel is the participation of local villagers. An initial community consultation process ensured that all members of the community had a good understanding of the potential project and the technology and agreed to the proposed plans for a tariff structure. Each family agreed to contribute with 80 days of labor to help in the civil works, in exchange for entry into the scheme, connection to the grid and home wiring. We were also amazed to learn that the community hand-build the mountain road in order to transport the equipment for their micro hydro system. When the rivers were too high to traverse, teams of men carried the huge electrical poles on their backs for miles to reach the remote community.
Women outside an electric-powered mill in Chel
The result is marvelous; the AHC is currently generating enough income from electricity sales to sustain their operation and maintenance costs. It also promotes the productive use of energy sources and has instigated economic development in the community, including the start up of a number of small enterprises. Here at AIDG Guatemala we are really interested in managing our Micro Hydro systems in a similar manner and it was a fantastic opportunity to see speak to the people in AHC and the consumers.
Duration: 16 min 41 sec (Spanish)
This episode looks at the example of the use of geothermal power in the production of dried fruit by Agroindustrias La Laguna. It also looks at the construction of a micro hydroelectric plant in Chel, Quiche, by the Asociación Hidroeléctrica Chelense (AHC), founded in 2001 with the support of the Fundación Solar. (around 6 min 42 sec)
Our next destination was to a potential microhydro site in Aquil Grande, Alta Verapaz, an epic journey through remote highland passes. On our way through the stunning valley heading from Chel back to Nebaj we passed through a huge construction site. Saul explained it was a 93MW Hydro-electric plant being built by a private company to sell the power to Union Fenosa, Guatemala’s private energy supplier to the rural poor (at inflated prices to the tariffs for urbanites..!).
Big = Better?
Cables will take power generated away from the area (where many communities still lack electricity) to a sub-station in Quetzaltenango. It reminded me of the lessons of Schumacher’s ‘Small is Beautiful’ and the value in small, simple and locally beneficial, appropriate technology. I pondered this and felt inspired about the huge capacity for AIDGs work as we bumped along the winding road!
The community of Aquil Grande is home to around 500 people, who are currently paying high electricity tariffs, particularly for their public street lighting. After clambering about in the stream with community members to conduct tests, it proved to be more than sufficient for a system to provide electricity for the coffee processing machinery, street lighting and the school, which is currently without power.
Intern Alex Surasky-Ysasi testing stream flow
The idea is to run the scheme in a similar model to Chel, with a community association running the scheme and selling the power to the coffee cooperative, powering the school and providing public street lighting at a third of the current cost. Therefore not only will it build technical and administrative capacity in the community, making the scheme more self-sustainable, but will also reduce the burden of expensive power bills, stimulate new businesses and help the coffee co-operative compete in the global marketplace.
The following is a video of how Mercy Corps is using mediation, together with economic development, to resolve land conflicts peacefully in Guatemala.
Duration: 5min 52sec
Duration: 4min 46sec
The second video in particular talks about how Mercy Corps, USAID and Walmart are working together to help local farmers move past traditional frijoles and corn for subsistence to fruits and vegetable that are in demand to supermarkets in Guatemala and the rest of Central America.
My last weekend in Guatemala before heading back to the States, I went on a mini TecoTour to La Florida with Carlos Poza (tour leader) and 8 very cool volunteers. La Florida is one of our newest community partners as well as a favorite place of many of our interns. It’s a three hour jaunt from Xela to Colomba with the last hour and a half following a windy cobblestone road past coffee fincas, bamboo, jungles and waterfalls. The finca currently grows cash crops such as coffee, cacao and macadamia. They also plant corn, tomatoes and various fruits and as well as raise sheep, pigs, cows and bees. Their honey is excellent.
Don Lencho
Saturday evening of the tour, Don Lorenzo sat us down and told us the story of SCIDECO (Sociedad Civil Para el Desarollo de Colomba - Civil Society for the Development of Colomba), the cooperative that owns La Florida. The following is a mixture of the story he relayed to us that night, supplemented with additional information from Chris Michael and Prensa Libre.
The struggle during the war years
SCIDECO’s initial struggle began with an attempt to organize finca workers operating in the Colomba area. In early 1982, La Organisacion Campesino por Tierra (the Peasant Associat
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The changing of the Junta Directiva in the Parque Central
Women outside an electric-powered mill in Chel
Intern Alex Surasky-Ysasi testing stream flow
