Teamwork and Program Support Improve Conditions in this Remote Mountain Community

Pictured are families in a remote mountain community receiving supplies of concrete and latrines for improvements for their homes.

Two participants from a remote mountain community tell what your support has meant to them:

Señora Maira: A community like ours, way up in the mountains, doesn’t get a lot of organizations that come this far away to help us. At first, it was not easy for us to trust, and many, including myself, were skeptical. Gradually, we learned to trust more in the technicians who came, and started to take their recommendations very seriously.

Since I became involved I’ve learned better ways to manage my vegetable garden, and new things about the vegetables I produce, both the ones we were familiar with and the ones new to us. Many of my neighbors and I improved our homes with energy-efficient stoves, latrines and water-storage facilities. Also, the floor of my house is now made of cement.

Señor Anacleto: We are a small community with very bad roads. For these reasons, the government paid little attention to us. During the rainy season we see landslides everywhere, and the river becomes very dangerous. However, God has always been with us, like the day our community participated in an assessment of local capacity and needs followed by training to discuss and learn how to help our farmers here who mostly do subsistence agriculture.”

“Gradually, we learned new techniques for basic grain, coffee, and plantain production, and focused on diversifying our farms. We have more food for consumption, and surplus to sell. We also learned better ways to care for our chickens, which are very important in our diet. We appreciate the work and commitment to helping us improve our community. We’ve made our houses safer for ourselves and our children. We now have energy-efficient stoves, bio-digesters, cement floors, and cisterns to catch and store rainwater. We came together as a community to build a new, solid, pedestrian bridge over the river. It was very dangerous to use the old bridge, especially for children going to school on the other side. Before we built the new bridge, we were completely isolated many times during the rainy season because there was no safe way to cross the river. So now we are happy because our children are safe and able to continue their education without interruption.

We all made a contribution to each improvement as a community. But our thanks goes to the contribution of Foods Resources Bank’s Honduras-Nueva Frontera program, and their staff, supported by One Great Hour of Sharing. Their support is reducing poverty and improving nutrition and food security by managing natural resources in a sustainable manner.