Food Forests for Guatemalan Community

Fleeing genocide in Guatemala's highlands since the 60's and 70's, Q'echi indigenous refugees began settling in the jungles around Livingston .  There are now 36 recognized Q'echi communities spread across over 1,500km2 of former rainforest, now mostly in rotation for slash-and-burn subsistence corn.  

One such community, Tatín village, has been leading the way restoring their ecosystems, planting trees,  transitioning their lands away from slash-and-burn into regenerative agroforestry systems.

This GoFundMe campaign has  funded successive rounds of this transition since early 2019.  It has united international donors who support these causes--rainforest conservation, regenerative farming, empowering indigenous communities, building local and sustainable economies-- with the dedicated men and women of Tatín village who are working hard and cost-effectively to put these preachings into practice.  Almost two years into this regenerative transition, thanks to over 140 individual donors, this campaign has been a resounding success:

  1) Funding 4 rounds of planting, totaling 42 project sites, 2,100 fruit trees, over 10,000 legume trees and over 14,000 annuals on 50+ acres.

  2) Training over 120 local men and women in regenerative agriculture methods.  Four of them (including one woman) are now professionals employed to train and design sites in neighboring communities.

  3) Developing our Community Engagement and Expansion models, improving them (for example we've reduced project costs by 70% since first season).

  4) Finding institutional supporters through these models and their demonstrable results, allowing us to expand this regenerative transition exponentially into more communities, 12 total to date, and double that coming in 2021!

--- See how Contour Lines has expanded this regenerative work>> Our History in Videos 

With the agricultural projects well underway, with over 18km of erosion-control Contour Lines across Tatín Village alone, planted with legumes, annuals and trees that are already bearing fruit, now this crowdfunding campaign continues by supporting the advanced stages of this regenerative transition.   Seed-sufficiency and tree nurseries, local teachers and organizational autonomy, economic viability of these projects -- the regenerative transition continues in Tatín village, where it all began.  This gofundme campaign also continues, connecting Tatín village with likeminded folks around the world who helped and continue to help make all this possible.

Timeline of this Crowdfunding Campaign:

COMPLETED - June 2019 - 1st Round of Food Forests (3 project sites)

COMPLETED - Dec 2019 - 2nd Round of Food Forests (6 more sites)

COMPLETED - June 2020 - 3rd Round of Food Forests (12 more sites)

COMPLETED - Dec 2020 - Women's Projects and Seed Sufficiency (21 Women's Annual sites)

>>UNDERWAY - in 2021 - Education, Training and Local Autonomy Initiatives

COMING UP - in 2021 - Processing and Marketing of Harvests

  *Campaign target is cumulative, total funding all successive rounds, with target raised and campaign continued for each.

Women’s Annual Project

With 10 sites already planting (700 cassava, plantain and pineapple of 1 acre each), we continue fundraising for the final 11 sites, brining the total Women's Projects to 21, equal to the Men's.  In addition to inclusion of the women in the regenerative process, these projects all produce more food security and income from short-term harvests, as well as ensure self-sufficiency in seeds for the whole community of Tatín, and beyond... 

 

Education and Training Initiatives

Also important to the sustainability of these project in Tatín and beyond are the propagation of these regenerative methods, their understanding, practice and mastery.  Therefore this next round of crowdfunding includes various education and training initiatives, including:

-Educational videos, teaching Contour Lines methods such as marking on contour with an A-level, chop-and-dropping legume trees for mulch, pruning, and organic pest control.  Videos are filmed on site and translated to Q'echi for sharing locally.

-Employing local extentionists, (namely Don Carlos, Victor and Reina of Tatín as well as Abelardo of La Guaria Coccoli) to train others, design and install sites, and expand the work of Contour Lines into more communities.

-Tours and classes, including a one-week training period at our tree nursery for locals to learn establishment of own nurseries, educational tours for new participants to existing project sites, and work days learning various methods by doing.

See budget for Education initiatives 

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For more on our work:

-See our full 2019 to 2020 matrices

-Visit the Contour Lines official website.

-Follow us on Contour Lines Facebook 

 

Special thanks to:

Jose Domingo Caal and Samuel Coc of AproSarstun 

Dwight Carter of Frutas Del Mundo 

Ulysses Milhose and Nicte Milhose of Migliozzi Estudio 

Thomas Leonard of Contour Lines Corp . 

All the people of Tatin Village working hard, leading the region's regenerative transition