
Women and Youth Building Local Economies
We have seen that the economic empowerment of women and youth is critical to achieving food sovereignty in households and communities, and this is one of the central pillars of CAN’s work. CAN currently supports three main initiatives, with more in development:
- Alternative Rural Enterprise Development in Quintana Roo, México: Market Chain Development for Maya Women
- Alternative Rural Enterprise Development in Veracruz, México: Organic Tianguis
- Alternative Rural Enterprise Development in San Ramón, Nicaragua: Women’s Collective Business Projects Expansion
RESEARCH FINDINGS
We are conducting a preliminary study of the impacts of these initiatives in late 2014 and early 2015. Research results will be ready to share in mid-2015.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The expansion of the revolving fund in 2014-15 will increase access to no-interest, long term loans available to youth and women’s groups for collective rural enterprises that will increase household income and access to basic buy avodart no prescription needs. Three rural business initiatives are still in need of funds to fulfill their business plans: a women’s group cornbread business in Ramon Garcia Cooperative in San Ramón, Nicaragua; a youth group in Veracruz with a business plan to produce and sell fruit marmalades; and a collective women’s initiative in Quintana Roo, México to produce value added products from garden produce to sell.
Three Main Initiatives
Parallel to this effort, the women’s group in the Denis Gutierrez Cooperative (another cooperative participating in the FSS project, and where CAN buys its AgroEco® Coffee) has undertaken a collective rural enterprise initiative using the 10 cent premium for the Unpaid Work of Women that is part of the AgroEco® Coffee price. Their collective initiative aims to address a critical and immediate problem of needing to renovate coffee fields lost to la roya, by producing fertilizer that they can sell to themselves and recoup the costs, in order to be able to repeat the process over the 2-3 years that the seedlings are growing before they reach their first harvest. This economic initiative thus fulfills two objectives of supporting coffee renovation in the women’s fields, as well as empowering them economically.
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