Goals and Plans for Pilot Project

 

Sowing Opportunities has the mission of fundraising for self-sustainability and education for remote, destitute indigenous villages in Guatemala.  Sowing Opportunities is seeking seed funding for the NGO CorGuate, which has the mission of agricultural self-sustainability, one village at a time, in Guatemala.  Through conscientious research, CorGuate determines the geographic, socio-cultural, political, relational networks, and cultivability of the land to assess the best strategy to create income for a village.  Once a village becomes self-sustainable, it can fund educational programs.  CorGuate is doing the core work on the ground and Sowing Opportunities is raising funds for its operations. 

 

Our pilot project in the village of Chajmaic (population 1600) will focus on growing Tabasco chili peppers, based on a successful project in Nicaragua that supports village inhabitants through a steady market throughout that country, selling the chilis through an established company in Guatemala, to the U.S. for Tabasco sauce.  We see tremendous potential for the village sustaining itself to move out of poverty and eventually support a school and a health clinic locally. 

Phase 3 plans to:

1. Establish trusted working relations with village leaders in Chajmaic

2. Develop land for, and beginning planting

3. Hire and train local workers for farming, as well as safe water education, so that they can teach their families, as well

 

Specific measureable results would include:

• Rent the size of 6 "manzanas" (10 acres of land, where 1 manzana = 5 city blocks or 1.72 acres) to cultivate Tabasco chili peppers to sell to the U.S. for sauce.

• Provide a steady income eventually for up to 1,120 people (60:40 men: women) of working age.

• The rivers are used for the villagers’ physiological needs; many suffer from intestinal diseases.  Education will be provided to the farm workers, along with farming training, and they will teach their families.

• Self-sustainable income and profit is anticipated after three years.

• Safe water, a health clinic, and a school will begin to be developed within the first year. 

 

Why Chajmaic?

There are hundreds of NGOs in Guatemala - some focused on health, some focused on education, and other issues - but most of them assist people who live in tourist regions of Guatemala.  

There is very little that assists people in the remote region where Chajmaic is.  That is one reason that the work there is so very important.