The barrio, La Esperanza

CAFSI (the Central American Food Security Initiative), is Plenty’s latest soy-based initiative. CAFSI is designed to improve local nutrition, as well as create jobs and income for impoverished communities in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico. This project, which includes both training and hardware investments, is the major new program being introduced by Plenty in 2004. Tom Wartinger, Chairman of Plenty’s Board of Directors, recently visited two of the CAFSI member sites and filed this report.

After I left Guatemala in 1978, the experience of having been a Plenty volunteer sharing the lives and deaths of many Mayan Indians carried me into a career in Medicine. Since I have returned to work with Plenty, I have become involved in a program called CAFSI, which has inspired me with its creativity, sustainability, and the commitment of its participating partners. This was the motivation for my return trip to Guatemala in January 2004.

Accompanied by Robert Reifel, a former Plenty volunteer in the South Bronx, and now a master builder and businessman, his son Sam, an accomplished videographer and filmmaker, and Dennis Martin, our former Plenty Guatemala program director, we departed for Guatemala to create a promotional video for the CAFSI project. Our plan was to visit two of the partner organizations that would collaborate with Plenty in CAFSI and document their stories to inspire potential supporters. (See photos)

We were met at the airport by several members of UPAVIM (United to Live Better), one of the four CAFSI partners, who escorted us to their headquarters in the heart of Barrio La Esperanza (The Hope) in Guatemala City. We spent the following three days learning about these remarkable women and the community they serve.

In 1985, with war raging in the countryside, many refugees fled to Guatemala City to seek safety, employment, and a second chance. Many families had lost fathers and husbands to the war or alcohol and poverty. Some of these brave women entered La Esperanza, a canyon used by the city as a garbage dump. They explained that they "pushed aside the garbage and erected houses out of cardboard" and got on with their new lives.

The woman of UPAVIM help support the organization by creating crafts, which are distributed through fair trade outlets.

Their first community project involved digging water lines and drainage ditches by hand for their neighborhoods of rudimentary shacks. Later, they established a women’s cooperative and UPAVIM was born. Over the last 17 years UPAVIM has grown and developed into a community service organization, housing a school, clinic and several viable businesses.

Its major source of financial support is a crafts business and sewing cooperative, which markets specialty items in the U.S., grossing over $250,000 a year. With these proceeds they have established a day care, preschool and a K-8 grade school to help care for and educate the children of the barrio. They have a wonderful compound central to the barrio and are constantly expanding the health, hope and safety they provide to the community.

Plenty’s chief soy specialist, Chuck Haren, has worked with UPAVIM to support their desire to develop a soy foods production facility and nutrition center. At this stage a production room is constructed, several pieces of equipment have been purchased and they are seeking further funding for technical assistance, marketing, and the remaining equipment needs. UPAVIM has agreed to participate in the CAFSI project and through it hopes to both create a viable business that can reinvest its profits in UPAVIM’s mission, and provide a source of inexpensive, delicious high protein foods to the community.

This soybean grinder has been in operation for 25 years.

After visiting UPAVIM we traveled to Solola in the Guatemalan highlands to visit the soy center in the neighborhood of Molino Belen. This was the site of Plenty’s original involvement in soy micro-enterprises. Formerly called Alimentos San Bartolo, the soy center is now managed under the guidance of ADIBE (The Association for the Development of Molino Belen), a 20 member non-profit organization established for the benefit of the community. These traditional Mayans eat soy foods on a regular basis and have continued to supply these products locally to Molino Belen as well as Solola and as far away as Guatemala City for nearly 25 years.

Agostin Xoquic who with his wife, Elena,has been managing the soy center since1980, prepares the soybean grinder for another day's run.

Agostin and Elena Xoquic, the original employees of the "soy dairy," still work almost full-time as they approach their 70’s. The business has remained viable through war and limited external support. They have maintained the original equipment over this time period. Chuck Haren has remained a constant for them, visiting and providing technical support annually, as well as raising small grants and other financial support through Plenty. Other Plenty personnel have assisted the facility over the years, and both ADIBE and Plenty are interested in reinvigorating our relationship and incorporating this soy dairy into the CAFSI project.

Soaking the beans before cooking.

ADIBE wants to expand production in order to be able to support more community development such as school nutrition projects as well as provide more local employment. Besides our desire to document their story of perseverance and commitment, Plenty wanted our visit to convey a message of increased support and commitment to ADIBE. Plenty fulfilled ADIBE’s request for funds to purchase a six-month supply of soybeans ($1200), and make critical repairs to the physical plant ($3300). In these ways, Plenty plans to support each CAFSI participant for their critical needs while pursuing funding for the larger two-year project.

A steaming kettle of tofu being gently stirred into smaller curds prior to draining and pressing.

We were all inspired by our visits to Molino Belen and UPAVIM, and we are even more committed to raising the funding necessary to fulfill the CAFSI program goals. In future bulletins we will outline the progress at the two additional sites - SoyNica in Managua, Nicaragua and at the Huichol Center in central Mexico.

When we left UPAVIM in Guatemala City, the pre-school children lifted their cups of soy milk to us and wished us "Salud!" ("Good health!), a wish I extend to all of you with thanks for your support of Plenty.

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