La Gallina, Sutiava, Nicaragua
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. Reduction in rainfall, stronger weather events, and rising temperatures are also contributing factors to the growing challenges rural communities are facing. Communities also struggle with widespread emotional stress disorders among residents, a result of living for generations with uncertainty.
VL has developed and implements programs that focus on alleviating poverty, beginning with community-wide, house-to-house, surveys to determine the unique characteristics of the population in order to co-author a development plan together with the community itself.
Following the survey and plan, we begin our 9-month training program with a group of adults, in which typically about 20 people participate. The training prepares them emotionally and tactically to begin working their land as small farmers, producing as many as 30 diverse organic vegetable and fruit crops to feed their families and sell locally in their community.
La Gallina began as a small rural community, within the Sutiava Indigenous Region, after the agrarian reform brought on by the results of the 1979 revolution. The land had been reorganized as large agricultural cooperatives at that time. By 2013, these cooperatives were disbanded and land was returned to indigenous families through legal titles to their original individual small properties, prompting a return to rural land by indigenous families.
Francisco Carrasco, a local leader:
“My wife and I are one of the original families of this community. We have many challenges: lack of housing, employment, and emotional difficulties. We have no experience farming on small land plots, or with nutritional foods, because of our reliance on food donations and the occasional daily work on industrial farms. Now we are excited to welcome ViviendasLeón with open arms and to get started on the training that will help us understand how to benefit our families and our community through farming.”
Help the residents of La Gallina build their farms. Donate here.