Well-Being For All

Terry in Honduras Part 4

CIAL’s
Honduras, August 28, 2006

We learn a lot from nature if we observe and look for the lessons that apply to us. I watched a cluster of ants as they worked together. The Soldier ants successfully overcame an invading insect as it tried to take a larvae from their colony. While the soldiers expelled the body of their foe, the workers carefully maneuvered the larvae that was several times their own size back to the safety of their home in the log.

It takes various skill sets working together to achieve the success a community needs. Simple enough. Not far from where the ants were at their work, a group of people were meeting with the Rural Reconstruction Program (PRR) staff about their community needs and opportunities. They are the rural poor. Just five years ago, they owned no land. Their homes were made of mud and sticks with thatched roofs. Malnutrition and disease from lack of a balanced diet plagued their children. Their ability to learn in their new school was dramatically limited and attendance was poor. The women suffered from serious eye and respiratory problems caused by open cooking fires in their homes. Contaminated drinking water made the entire community ill on a regular basis. Their only cash income came from coffee picking -seasonal work only. Family income ran at less than $300 a year.

I have visited several “Pioneer Villages” across Canada depicting life in colonial and pioneer times from the 1500’s to the late 1800’s. The living conditions in this village of El Barro, Honduras were much like what the pioneers faced in the “new world” of the northern Americas in the 1600’s to1700’s. PRR is the long-term development partner of World Accord in this area of Honduras. With their system of helping individual community members to work together as a group, PRR helped the community form two groups based on their needs. Both are called a CIAL which is an acronym of the first letter of the four Spanish words that mean Community Agricultural Research Committee.

It is a model first developed in Columbia and brought to Honduras by the University of Guelph and Professor Sally Humphries. PRR staff have embraced the process and now use it almost exclusively to help the rural poor improve their lives. The first CIAL group in El Barro, consists of a group of men who are all farmers. After forming their group and electing their President and Treasurer, they actively began testing the dozens of varieties of corn seed available from PRR. The Agronomists of the PRR Program assisted them with the technical skills of how to manage the test plots in the fields they rent around their village. The land rental capital was provided by PRR with funding grants from World Accord. Their environmentally destructive practice of slash and burn in the mountains was replaced with the use of compost on land and fields worked in a technique the Agronomists have demonstrated for years called Soil and Water Conservation.

This system of trenches and barriers captures rainwater run-off and is proven to stop erosion. Crop yield increases run from 100% to over 300% in the first year. The second CIAL group in El Barro is very unique and is now a major focus for PRR. It consists solely of women. They have another cluster of needs they wished to address and a Construction Expedition lead by the volunteers Al Wigood and Jens Schoenrank met one of these needs when they helped construct a community 'Kinder' school. A Kinder provides schooling for younger children so moms can work in the fields and older siblings (usually girls) can continue their own education.

As already mentioned, the living conditions of the community were very poor. Only five years ago, El Barro was about on par with most villages in the area around the PRR office a decade earlier. The women used their increased family income as collateral to petition PRR for a home improvement program, but the homes were not worth trying to improve. New homes were needed. Two years ago, 22 of the 26 community members pledged to repay housing loans for cement and roofing materials and the community build themselves 22 homes with technical assistance from PRR. The women brought about incredible change, but they did not stop there. They continued to do other activities and currently are testing nine new varieties of beans for the best variety in their area. They selected an assortment from a pool of over 200 varieties available from the test plots at PRR. Some people criticize “development agencies” like World Accord for working too long in an area. They fear dependence upon World Accord and they believe it should not take decades of assistance to transform a community. They have a point.

But the critics are often confused about the difference between AID and DEVELOPMENT. AID creates dependence and there are strong arguments against most Food Aid provided by Canada. How can a local farmer sell their produce when foreign aid groups provide it for free? The difference with the approach of World Accord is simple. World Accord is just as dependent as PRR. We are dependent upon each other. World Accord cannot affect change without local partners like PRR. PRR cannot provide technical assistance and training without financial assistance which is currently not available in their country. Where we do not want to promote dependence is at the household and community levels.

Now to the example of El Barro. Their CIAL groups had increased family income, they had built a new Kinder School to complement the government elementary school. They had built new homes complete with potable water and latrines. They had moved from the life as it was in the 1600’s or 1700’s to maybe standards of 75 years ago in Canada. And they did it mostly themselves. It was an amazing transformation. A few months ago, an outside force exerted pressure on their community. A wealthy family from the city was buying up all the available land in the area of their village. Most of the land is hilly and some areas are quite steep. The land the CIAL’s were renting to finance their transformation was being sold to an exporter of beef for the North American fast food industry. The CIAL’s met and created their own plan of action then once again, they petitioned PRR, their only possible source for a loan to purchase the land for the community. Again, with funding grants from World Accord, the loan was made.

Yesterday, I walked that land. The men and women stopped their work as they showed us their crops growing on their own land. The pride was infectious and it showed in their eyes. With all their plans and all their hopes, they were living beyond their fondest dreams. Their lives are now at a stage of Development that eluded them and their ancestors for hundreds of years. The CIAL’s of the men and the women of El Barro are repaying their loans. They are managing their own affairs. They have had the regional mayor or Alcalde and several government ministers visit their community. They have placed El Barro on the map. This is development. It takes several years, not just a few months or a year or two. It requires local people who are known and trusted because they have earned their respect. That takes years too.

To our critics we say, “Give your heads a shake!” “Look at the facts!” “Look at the evidence!” “Compare simple AID to long lasting Development” “Humanitarian AID has a place at times of war, disaster or famine but it MUST be accompanied by a long term program to support local sustainable development.”

To our donors AND to our partners in the field we say “THANK YOU! MUCHAS GRACIAS!”

The World Accord Central American Program is funded in part by the Canadian Government through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Community of Christ World Hunger Fund and by private donations of families and volunteers across Canada.

THANK YOU ALL! As with the ants, it takes the entire 'colony' working together to achieve sustainable success for their community. The human family is much the same. Canadians, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans working together with a Mexican and a Bangladeshi, are making a difference. Together we help build sustainable Community.

Terry Fielder, Honduras

posted by World Accord Staff @ 1:15 PM