PUENTE A LA SALUD COMUNITARIA
Planting Amaranth, Harvesting Food Sovereignty
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Puente works with families in 35 rural communities in the Central Valleys and the Mixtec region of Oaxaca. The percentage of the population living in poverty in Oaxaca is 61.9% (CONAPO, 2020) with 23.3% categorized as living in extreme poverty and 38.8% lacks access to food (ENSANUT, 2012). The food landscape in the indigenous communities of Oaxaca adds to food insecurity, the double burden of malnutrition with 27% of Oaxacans suffering from food insecurity while we have also seen national obesity levels triple in the last two decades. Both issues are rooted in a lack of access to and informed consumption of sufficient, nutritious foods. The entry of these products into the communities, together with the use of agrochemicals that cause the disappearance of local edible herbs, the alienation of their own territory, the high rate of migration, and a disjointed education of cultural knowledge about care, health, land, and body, is causing the gradual loss of traditional eating habits.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Eco Amaranth & Agroecology
Objective: Farmer families will use agroecological practices to restore depleted soil, more efficiently and effectively manage water resources, and cultivate heartier, resistant crops while diversifying their income through the construction of local agroecological networks and the commercialization of their bio-inputs.
While our team continues to support amaranth farmers through every stage of their production cycle, we have expanded our focus to support the production and commercialization of bio-inputs which help to restore the soil and fortify crops while also providing a new income stream for farmers. This expanded work, paired with community campaigns, will promote agroecological practices for all the crops being grown in the region. The installation of water-capture systems at 12 regional biofactories along with water management training (at our farm-lab) will directly confront one of the greatest challenges facing farmers in Oaxaca.
Health & Nutrition (interdisciplinary initiative)
Objective: Engage families to take ownership of their health by promoting home gardening and healthy meal planning through workshops and monthly bulletins for both adults and children. This interdisciplinary initiative works with the families that are part of our other programs as well as partnering with public schools, allied nonprofit organizations, and restaurants to ensure a broad impact. We also partner with a coalition of local organizations through Alliance for Food Health to promote healthy lifestyles through social media, traditional media, and even public transport campaigns.
Social & Solidarity Economies
Objective: Accompany microenterprises in expanding their market access beyond Puente-subsidized regional centers to local organic markets, restaurants, and consumer-to-consumer chains including an online store partnered with other local producers. This work will include nutritional analysis, product label improvement, and financial literacy coursework. We are also working to build alliances with other cooperatives to improve the quality of other ingredients in products including cacao, natural sweeteners, and local fruit. To strengthen the integration of healthy, sustainable food systems, the Social Economy team also works with farmer families to commercialize their bio-inputs and other agroecological crops for broader market access and an additional revenue stream for their families.
Puente Rojas (project)
As a laboratory for sustainable farming and living, Puente Rojas is a dynamic space that can demonstrate the accessibility and techniques of ecological practices in our everyday lives as well as in food production. The learning center will serve as a site for workshops in agroecological food production, water capture and management, cooking and nutrition, alternative energies, solar cooking and dehydration techniques, and community development. Puente Rojas allows us to expand our impact beyond our networks to serve partner organizations, school programs, and the general public. Our strategy requires that we build a balance between paid and subsidized learning opportunities to ensure accessibility while also helping us attain sustainability in the next 3-4 years.
Where we work
Awards
Outstanding Community Partner Award 2010
Stanford University
Clarence Moore Award for Voluntary Service 2008
Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization
Impact and Social Commitment Award 2015
INDESOL
Premios Latinoamérica Verde 2018
Premios Latinoamérica Verde
Affiliations & memberships
Alianza por la Salud Comunitaria 2020
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of groups/individuals benefiting from tools/resources/education materials provided
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples, Farmers, Families
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
communities
Number of financial literacy courses conducted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families
Related Program
Social & Solidarity Economies
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Puente proposes food sovereignty as a path towards sustainable solutions to economic poverty and the fractured social fabric caused by socio-economic, migratory, and environmental factors through the construction of an integrated system of agroecological production, economic solidarity, and the health and well-being of the community. We contribute to food sovereignty by providing technical and logistical support to farmer families in rural Oaxaca to promote the adoption of agroecological practices, promoting social economy through financial literacy and commercialization workshops, as well as supporting microenterprises in building market access and product development, and leading nutritional workshops across demographics to help counteract the impact of industrialized food and encourage a return to a traditional diet that embraces local, agroecological food.
While our underlying primary objective is always to contribute to food sovereignty, our current objectives for Puente as a “project” are to:
1. provide farmer families with the tools and knowledge they need to cultivate their crops agroecologically for the health and well-being of their families and communities,
2. collaboratively build new local and regional commercialization chains for microenterprises that connect them with other local producers that practice agroecology and solidarity economies,
3. promote a holistic approach to community health that prioritizes a return to traditional, whole-foods eating, exercise, and mindfulness, and
4. engage with a broader cross-section of the public as well as build our alliances with partner organizations through the learning opportunities at our farm-laboratory, Puente Rojas.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To promote commitment and sustainability, Puente supports and accompanies two regional networks. The Mixteca Amaranth Network has been operating for 7 years in the Mixteca Alta and the Central Valleys Amaranth Network was formed 8 years ago in the Etla Valley, both under the principles of community health, economic solidarity, and agroecological practices.. The networks are made up of farmers, groups of microbusinesses, and consumers, adding value and ownership through collective decision-making to every stage of the production, commercialization, and consumption cycle, and increasing local organization around healthy food systems. The networks have their own leadership committees that work directly with the Puente teams to develop projects for the production of amaranth and other crops, elaboration of agroecological inputs (organic fertilizers), and the organization of microenterprises for the commercialization of fresh produce, products made from amaranth and other crops, and inputs. We work together for self-organization and co-responsibility, ensuring the sustainability of our mission and impact.
Together, with the regional networks, we have identified obstacles to food sovereignty: the difficulty of cohesion in marginalized communities; the low profitability of the agroecological cultivation process due to land displacement, water scarcity and climate change; lack of access manuals for farmers on agroecological cultivation processes, and the lack of literacy on issues of development, business management, production costs, and commercialization chains.
To solve these problems, Puente raises, through the synergies between its different activities, integrated lines of action, which are aimed at not only building capacity and autonomy within our partner networks but also contributing to a better-informed consumer community for a sustainable and mutually-beneficial cycle of production, commercialization, and consumption.
The first line of action focuses on identifying and training on every stage of agroecological production, primarily of the amaranth grain, from seed selection and soil preparation through the entire cultivation process and up to the negotiation and sale of the harvest within solidarity networks.
The second line of action is aimed at promoting good practices for the collection and management of water to counteract the most damaging impact of the climate crisis in the Oaxaca region.
The third line of action is comprehensive training through participatory practices for microenterprises to understand how to analyze and develop products, from ingredient sourcing through building short commercialization chains as a network.
The fourth line of action is focused on training the general public on critical nutritional, environmental, and lifestyle issues to empower them to take ownership of their own health and their impact on the environment.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Puente has worked since 2003 to promote community health, evolving to incorporate agroecology and solidarity economies as core projects for a more holistic approach to food sovereignty. We work closely with key stakeholders to build long-term projects that ensure community buy-in. Our community promoter program trains local young adults to join our team, receiving a monthly stipend, and professional development. The end goal of our community promoter program is that the participants will use what they’ve learned from their participation to start their own projects in these same communities. We have seen this program bear fruit with several promoters opening their own agroecological businesses (general stores, biofertilizer production, infrastructure projects) as well as pursuing higher-level education in themes of community development and sustainable agriculture. Our current technicians were all trained as community promoters and selected from this program. As full-time staff members, they are key to realizing our training program with community promoters and carrying out our program activities, working with their own local community members.
Puente believes strongly in the importance of coalition building and strategic alliances. Our most important partnerships are with the two autonomous regional networks - Red de Amaranto Valles Centrales and Red de Amaranto Mixteca.
One of our principal partners is the amaranth company San Miguel de Proyectos Agropecuarios, with whom we jointly applied for and won the only nationwide prize for Human Development and Sustainability from Fundación PepsiCo, resulting in a four-year grant to continue our project adapting small-scale appropriate technology for amaranth production, microenterprise support, and community health initiatives in Oaxaca and Hidalgo.
In 2020, we were proud to be founding members of Alianza por la Salud Alimentaria (Alliance for Food Health) which successfully lobbied the Oaxacan congress to pass the first law in Mexico that prohibits the sale of soda or junk food to minors. We will continue working in this alliance to improve the enforcement of this law and to improve community understanding of the dangers of industrialized food consumption.
We are also founding members of Grupo Enlace de Amaranto México, an alliance of producers that work together to promote amaranth production and consumption. Our biggest achievement within this group was the inclusion of amaranth in the “canasta basica”, a selection of basic foods that are considered necessary for a healthy diet. We continue to work within the group to share technical resources and support new amaranth initiatives.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
2003 — Our first program was Healthy Families, working with mothers, grandmothers, youth. and children to present amaranth as a valuable but affordable ingredient in family meals.
2007 — In 2007, Puente added amaranth cultivation and production as our second program. Growing the grain seemed to be the next natural step for Puente, partnering with farmers in the regions to add amaranth to their crop production.
2008 — Clarence H. Moore Award for Voluntary Service
2010 — Stanford Medical School Community Partner Award
2010 — Launch of first Amaranth Day, an annual festival that brings together all of the communities Puente works with in the city of Oaxaca for panel discussions, food tastings, workshops, interactive exhibits, live music, and cultural demonstrations, and a kids’ activity area.
2011 — The final piece of Puente’s fundamental programming was the Social Economy program, launched in 2011 when Puente developed his first strategic plan and realized that we needed a link between grain production and consumption by families in the community. Microenterprise groups buy the grain to make amaranth-based products that include popped cereal and granola, crackers, crackers, tortillas, tostadas, and flour, a gluten-free baking alternative
2015 — INDESOL Impact and Social Commitment Award
2016 — In 2016, as our partner farmers increasingly noticed the impact of climate change on their crops, especially the scarcity of rain in the Central Valleys, and when our tests revealed depleted soils and weakened plants, Puente and the networks collectively decided on the transition to 100% agroecological practices for a stronger, more nutritious plant with greater resistance to external factors.
2018 — Latinoamérica Verde Award
2020 — In 2020, we transitioned the “Healthy Families” program to be a cross-disciplinary initiative, “Health and Nutrition” that informs all of our programmatic work and our work with the Alianza por la Salud Alimentaria (Alliance for Food Health). With the Alianza por la Salud Alimentaria, we successfully lobbied for the revision of state law for the protection of children’s rights to include the prohibition of the sale of junk food and soda to minors.
2020 - Transition of our annual Amaranth Day celebration to a 2-day virtual festival with panel discussions, workshops, cooking classes, and live interviews with an impact of 3,500 unique participants in 7 countries.
Today, Puente works with 2 autonomous regional networks and 35 communities throughout the Oaxacan region. Our farm-laboratory at Puente Rojas offers a living model of sustainable living and agroecological food production in workshops and intensive trainings.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback
-
What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
PUENTE A LA SALUD COMUNITARIA
Board of directorsas of 02/22/2022
Dr. Gabriel Garcia
Retired, Stanford University
Term: 2020 - 2022
Aerin Dunford
Coquixa Consultores
Jennifer Rogers-Brown
Long Island University, Post (LIU Post)
April Watson
Practice Transformation Initiative for the California Quality Collaborative
Katherine Lorenz
National Center for Family Philanthropy
Kate Seely
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 03/28/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.