Centro Huichol, or the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts, is an indigenous non-profit organization that is dedicated to cultural education and improving the ability of Huichol people to provide for their own basic needs. Over the past year Plenty, supported by a grant from the Atkinson Foundation and individual donations, has sent material and technical resources to help Centro Huichol staff improve food processing skills, and implement nutrition and food processing education activities with economically disenfranchised families. Plenty has also worked with Centro Huichol to develop sustainable organic vegetable, dry legume, amaranth and corn seed production and distribution services.

While working at Centro Huichol this time I was able to help the organization build, set up and learn to use a small stainless steel (ss) soy milk press and a ss bottle and bag filling tool for liquid products. While there we completed two workshops with staff and visitors at Soy Alegre. It was great to see that the Huichol Center staff was able to efficiently use grinding, cooking and other food processing equipment that had been installed to help Soy Alegre begin food processing and marketing education activities in January 2005.

During this short technical assistance visit I was also able to help Centro Huichol staff to locate (in Fresnillo), purchased and install small industrial water filters (carbon, sediment) at the Soy Alegre processing room. We expect to finish out the water filtering system in October with installation of an ultra-violet light, used to kill bacteria that may pass through the other filters.

I also had the chance to work with the agriculture coordinator and people managing the Centro Huichol vegetable gardens. We purchased, packaged and began distributing a variety of open-pollinated vegetable seeds. This included squash, peppers, tomato, carrot, cabbage, tomatillo and other vegetable seed needed to help parents increase their children's access to, and intake of all the vitamins and nutrients they need to grow strong and remain healthy. One or two weeks before my arrival, staff there completed the planting of three traditional varieties of corn and organic non-gmo soybeans they have been testing over the past three years. Seeds from these crops, when harvested in November and December, will be used at Centro Huichol and distributed to families for replanting on their lands in the Sierra Madre Mountain villages.

The people at Centro Huichol are doing a lot of great work beyond their food and nutrition activities. They provide employment for more than 40 people who work in the production of crafts that depict and promote traditional Huichol culture. They have 10-12 young people working on projects in the office and school that allow them to develop graphic design, critical thinking, drawing, writing, computer, teaching, organization, communications and other skills that will benefit them for life. Centro Huichol also provides emergency ambulance service, pays for costs of continuing cultural education activities, and makes small grants and loans to families who do not have access to tradition banking resources.