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

After the business plan development workshop in Tabasco, Quintana Roo, in July 2013, the team of UIMQRoo professors and students set out to perform a detailed market study of all possible market channels for the produce being produced by the UIAM women’s group in Tabasco. After exploring over 15 different weekly and monthly organic and alternative markets, and stationary stores in the Riviera Maya, as well as local markets in Jose Maria Morelos (JMM), the women and the team decided to start experimenting with different options that would give the women experience participating and selling in public markets. Representatives of the UIAM group and the UIMQRoo team participated in two different outdoor markets in the Riviera Maya in January-March 2014, and everyone agreed that these were important experiences, but with strong challenges like distance and transportation costs that would severely limit the women’s ability to participate regularly and in a sustainable fashion in the long run without the financial support of the project. At the same time, in late 2013, the UIMQRoo team launched its first outdoor farmers market in JMM in December, which was a success not only for the fifteen women producers of Tabasco, but also the community, who greatly enjoyed being connected through the market to isolated rural communities like Tabasco. Since December, the UIMQRoo team has teamed up with the JMM municipal offices and other departments at UIMQRoo to put on a monthly farmers market, which has become an event that the entire community looks forward to, and which also is making great contributions to the women’s household income each month, in addition to the second market channel the women are engaging in, which is selling their produce locally in Tabasco.