Think Creative - Issue 2

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HAND PUMPS push water from bag into tank

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ELEVATED TANK drip irrigates field

leadership that he already has, the technology we’re going to pass on won’t be transferred through technicians, but though a producer. And people understandmuch better farmer-to-farm- er than if a technician teaches them.” Raising hopes Though only in the first of five years, the proj- ect has stoked excitement among the commu- nities and has begun to see results. Its continued success, however, will hinge on support and full engagement from the commu- nities, explains René León, Project Manager and Senior Associate for Creative’s Workforce Development and Youth Practice Area. And he’s already noticed families’ willingness to not only participate, but to do what they can to ensure that the project’s initiatives take hold. “I can see the desire of the community to be integrated and to be actors of the project,” León says. “To be active actors and not passive actors sitting and waiting for what the project can do for them, but how they can collaborate and incorporate themselves into the project so that the project can achieve better results and be successful.”

León contends that “it’s expensive to be poor” in the Dry Corridor, because impoverished families lack the up-front resources it takes to increase productivity and improve living con- ditions. With ACS-PROSASUR interventions, León and his team are working to empower families in poverty and extreme poverty to make positive change happen. This change is welcomed by Escobar, who has labored over his field largely on his own over the years, plowing fields with oxen, tilling and planting. Today, he has some help from one of his 21 grandchildren and some new techniques from the project. Escobar says he’s looking forward to seeing the positive effects that having a bit of extra assis- tance will produce in future harvests. “God willing the coming year we will have the help that we need. We will no longer have to go around borrowing pickaxes and shovels,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking for, for some help, because as farmers there are so many things we don’t have.” n With reporting in Honduras by Jillian Slutzker and Amalia San Martín

navigating around herds of cows and flatbed trucks laden with agricultural workers on their crowded commute. RimenMartinez, environmental specialist for the project, says generating sustainable change at the community level requires a continuous process of training and knowledge exchange among neighbors. “If a home adopts the technology, it will be easy to replicate that type of technology at the community or municipal level,” he says. “So it’s a process that requires a lot of knowledge-sharing, a lot of training, because you have to influence people’s culture, the culture of the home.” Working with Escobar early on in the project’s five-year lifespan is part of that plan to spread knowledge across the region. Edgardo Varela, who leads the project’s agri- culture component, says Escobar’s reputation and influence as a community leader – and his friendly and talkative nature – make him well-suited to pass on what he’s learning from the project to his neighbors. “When we give hima technology, he can teach others how to use that technology without the help of a technician,” Varela says. “With the

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