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ViviendasLeón has been working since March with 23 indigenous women from the Los Planes community in Santa Lucía Utatlán, Guatemala.  The Mayan communities of Central America live with multiple challenges including lack of food security, unemployment, and access to education. Additionally, indigenous women have faced violence and discrimination. Our training program works to restore women’s self-esteem, personal empowerment, agency, social development, and technical skills to take on the challenges of the multiple needs they have lived with for generations.

In June 2022 ViviendasLeón expanded to a new community in Nicaragua called La Gallina. The challenges there are similar to other communities where we work, as they are throughout the underdeveloped tropical countries around the world. Lack of food security, high unemployment, and limited access to education are common.

According to the UN Meteorological Organization WMO, there is an 80 percent probability that the El Niño effect will begin by September 2023.  Agriculture being one of the main sectors of the economy, will be deeply affected. Engaging almost 70 percent of the population and contributing to 20 percent of the country’s GDP,  agriculture is central to the rural and economic survival of Central America.

In the month of March 2023, ten new families joined our growing list of farming families. This new group brings our total number of farmers to 50, farming 60 farms in Nicaragua, enough to feed 300 families. In March they were given materials for the construction of of their family farms…

Our recent experience with mothers from Los Planes and Paxub’ highlighted the challenge they face when their children are young and they are trying to improve their lives. Not having access to child care, they have brought their children to the workshops, and have then been distracted and not able to participate in the program.

The health system in Guatemala is uneven and in several health centers there are no medicines, doctors or the necessary supplies to care for the community.  When training for reproductive health, several centers will not participate. They have contraceptive methods, condoms, even safety kits available for women who have been sexually abused, but fail to disseminate basic information with women’s groups in communities.

Openly discussing empathy, assertive communication, expressing our emotions and knowing how to channel them has been something new for our participants.

COABE began with ideas based in environmental restoration and making use of existing resources within the community. It was born from the enthusiasm of two rural women for owning their own hives,  producing honey and making natural cosmetics using honey as a raw material.

Vilma and her brothers were growing and the needs were increasing in her family. Her father was absent, and her mother had to take care of her children alone. Vilma had to make the decision to travel to the capital to work and support her family. Full of courage and determination, at the age of 14 she left her community to look for a job opportunity.

Historically, rural farmers in Central America grew a few crops, corn, beans and squash, that were staple crops.  They grew a lot of each because it was easier, and if they lost half of their crop in bad weather, there would still be enough to feed their families and animals.  In Guatemala, these three staples