Feeding the Future
Our partners throughout Mesoamerica take to heart that youth are the future of their efforts, and of their communities.
While many of our partners focus on programs that improve food security for youth and families, they also work to integrate young people into those programs, ensuring learnings and practices are carried forward.
One of our long-term Guatemala partners, Utz’ Che, is including youth representatives in their sustainable family agriculture program. Including a variety of training on sustainable techniques such as circular farming, biochar, bio pest control, compost, and many others, the program improves household food security while integrating ancestral Maya knowledges. This year’s program integrated 45 new families, including many youth, who learn and practice these methods alongside their families.
Similarly, our other partner in Guatemala, FUNDEBASE, is including youth in their agroecology program. With the long-term goal of generating a network of community agroecology promoters and trainers, the program includes workshops on agroecological methods, support in applying those methods in family plots, and facilitation of community exchanges. The majority of leaders within this program are young women who are working together to establish strong community-based agroecology networks.
Rooted in ancestral knowledges, restrengthening these agroecological practices supports community food sovereignty while also forming important bridges between past and future generations. As much as these youth development efforts are about building food-secure futures, they’re also about connecting youth to the insights and practices that sustained their ancestors for generations. In this context, our partners deeply understand the ties between food sovereignty and cultural continuity, and they see youth as a key to both.
In Guatemala, and in all efforts we support throughout El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico, our partners are always thinking generations ahead.
They understand that investing in the health of the land is a gift to the next generation, and investing in the next generation is a gift to the land – if we keep building the connection between them.
