VIVIENDASLEON

According to UNICEF, 19% of children in Nicaragua under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition. In Guatemala 36% of rural families are food insecure, while stunting rates among children are some of the highest in the world.

Solution:
In Nicaragua ViviendasLeón is training rural families to farm their land and produce a diverse variety of organic vegetables, fruits and citrus to improve the diets of as many as 5 rural families. In Guatemala, ViviendasLeón currently partners with Mil Milagros to build or renovate school kitchens, and is working toward launching our four year training and food security program in 2022.

Outcomes:
Each year ViviendasLeón trains 20 new families in farming and entrepreneurship to produce sufficient food for their families and to create a stable family income from selling their produce to other families in their community. ViviendasLeón ensures their success through continuous weekly supervision and training workshops over four years.

Families are now capable of farming their land throughout the year, producing 3 crop cycles while growing enough food for their families and for 5 additional families in their communities.

Rural communities live with many environmental challenges that contribute to poor public health, food insecurity and persistent poverty. Many are located on deforested land or former cotton farms that have left the soil contaminated from agro-chemicals in the mid 20th century. In western Nicaragua 60% of forests have been lost to industrial cultivation of peanuts and sugar cane. Today the sugarcane industry produces soil and air pollutants, and diminishes groundwater resources that contribute to these conditions.

Solution:
Our reforestation program was developed in partnership with Trees for the Future, to improve soils, reduce erosion, and restore the forest that supports water security, farming and wildlife. A basic course in plant science develops an awareness of environmental stewardship which in turn supports the production of 10,000 trees per year, and the training needed for intensive organic farming.

Outcomes:
ViviendasLeon trains each farming family in the skills required to germinate, grow and transplant forest trees. In turn, these families have established tree nurseries with our support in their communities and successfully produce sufficient numbers of trees each year to reforest their communities. Beginning in 2019, ViviendasLeon introduced citrus trees to farming families. These trees are also produced from seed in their community nurseries.

Chronic unemployment is one of three major causes of migration in Central America. In Nicaragua 36% of working age adults are unemployed and 40% are in vulnerable employment. In Guatemala, 38% of working age adults are unemployed including 60% of women and 20% of men.

Solution:
In Nicaragua, ViviendasLeon is training adults in business planning and entrepreneurship, with support to form farming related and small manufacturing businesses such as clothing or accessories production. In Guatemala, we are working toward implementing this same program in 2022.

Outcomes:
Developing small family businesses produce new income and a sense of empowerment. Families no longer depend on the industrial farming economy for their employment and have the skills and capacities to succeed in their own ventures.

Family incomes double within one year of beginning farming and selling produce.

New business partnerships have generated new sources of income within communities.

Women owned businesses promote gender equity among domestic partners

Studies completed in 2015 show a large number of high school dropouts and high illiteracy rates in Sutiaban communities. These elevated numbers indicate challenges including early pregnancy, patriarchal attitudes toward education and lack of economic resources that prevents many people from attending school, forcing them into work at an early age.

Solution:
Viviendasleon grants academic scholarships to students while influencing them on behaviors such as discipline, perseverance and educational development, and developing a new paradigm of educational equality in rural communities. Currently, the program awards 12 youth scholarships that are a monthly stipend for books, supplies, travel and clothing to attend school, with monthly mentoring and tutoring support.

As part of their responsibilities as scholarship recipients, students are required to maintain a high GPA and participate in a supporting role on programs benefitting other students in the community provided by ViviendasLeon.

Central America is warming and experiencing increasingly variable rainfall. Total rainfall has decreased by 6-10% over the past 30 years. The consequences of this change in climate is already being felt in greater food insecurity and intensifying migration from the region.

Solution:
ViviendasLeón is working with local family farmers to improve their existing, hand-dug wells to secure sufficient water supplies. Improved wells have been producing four times the annual required amount of irrigation and domestic water allowing farmers to plant crops throughout the year.

Outcomes:
ViviendasLeón has provided an improved or in some cases, a new well for each of the 40 current farming families we work with.

Beginning in 2021, our program will ensure that each new farm will be supplied with an improved well to guarantee sufficient water.

All existing farming families now have the capacity to grow three crop cycles each year, with as many as 15 vegetable varieties, citrus and fruit trees.

This increased capacity has produced growth in family incomes, giving families the ability to purchase additional food to diversify their diet, send their children to school full time and manage their small businesses.

With this additional water, families have been able to wash dishes and clothing more regularly and their consumption of cleaner water has improved their health outcomes.