Mar
Community Development Projects, News from Communities
Chilama-Crystal Lake Agriculture Project, March 3 2007
2007 Project: Community of Chilama, La Libertad.
Sister City: Crystal Lake, Illinois.
The community calls this project:
Organization and agriculture through solidarity with the Community of Chilama
Objective 1: Help provide some of the basic food needs for the families of the community of Chilama.
Objective 2: Promote a culture of community work and solidarity that contributes to the development of the community and region
This project incorporates economic support to families for agricultural production for the 2007 planting season, community production and infrastructure projects. Financial support will be given to the great majority of families in the community who decide to produce basic grains for the year’s consumption (corn, beans). The community projects this number at around 35 of the 43 families living in the community. This support will not cover 100% of the cost of production, rather it will help producers have access to land (rental), and fertilizer, allowing them to consume more of their harvest instead of selling it off to repay loans for production costs.
Prior to the planting season, the community plans to carry out work to repair their road. They have been refused financial and technical support to fix the road from the local government, NGOs, and politicians. So they have decided to fix it themselves. They have already started by hauling rocks from the river up the hill, and have been able to cobblestone together the first several hundred yards of the several kilometres of road. The community proposes that all the families who contribute their labor to the road project should receive economic support through this project for their agricultural production. The Community Council will has announced this in a January assembly, and keeps track of who is working on the road project.
As the year goes on, and the Community Council has recorded the number of families who worked on the road project and qualify as direct beneficiaries of the project, CORDES and CRIPDES will then help the community to make an in-bulk purchase of fertilizer with the project money, with the fertilizer to be divided equally among the beneficiary families.
The fertilizer will be distributed in April, in time for the May planting season. After the December harvest, each of the beneficiary families will contribute 3 “medios” (54 pounds, total) of their corn harvest to be divided equally among the families who were not initially direct beneficiaries of the project. It will probably come out to between 200-250 pounds per family, which is around 1/3 of their yearly consumption, depending on family size.
