The Alzar las Voces (Raise the Voices) project in Nicaragua brings farmers in rural communities the possibility to speak out through video telling of their concerns, their projects, their wishes and ideas.
There are six organizations in Matagalpa Honduras who are working on this project including women’s collectives, Matagalpa Organization for the Blind, farmer organizations and an information center for Sustainable Development with the aid of Simas. The website is part of a project which will serve to showcase the work these organizations are doing with the members of the community by having members of the rural communities speak about their life, concerns and interests.
In this next video, Marcial Gonzalez, a promoter of the Farmer to Farmer program, explains how the program has helped them: first, they learned they shouldn’t burn their lands to clear them, how to build or grow ditches and barriers to help control erosion. Another lesson they’ve learned is the importance of saving and keeping seeds from national varieties of plants, since they are ideal to grow in their environment and why trees should be kept and not cut down, since they provide oxygen, shade and maintain the water sources.
Juana Urrutia, in another video, explains what it means to be a community promoter. A Promoter is in charge of a group or community, protecting the community’s interests, be it in fieldwork, production or socially. They also transmit knowledge which they received during workshops or activities, since it is their responsibility to put into practice what they have learned within their communities.
Martha Elena Montenegro is a beneficiary of the credits and programs to help women start their own businesses. She makes some products using materials she harvests from her farm, however, after all the effort, she now has to pay back her loans, and she uses the video medium to ask how she should best distribute her earnings in order to be able to pay back her loan.