Home Garden in Aguacate Village
Photo by Abib Palma

PLENTY BELIZE

On September first the new school term commenced across Belize which for us meant the beginning of another School Gardens program (GATE) year. We have two new schools for this year, San Lucas and Mabil Ha. That brings the total number of schools participating in the program to thirty-four. Eleven of these are already graduated and are mostly operating on their own. Thus, we're actively supporting twenty-three schools right now.

Four villages with a total of twenty families (five per village) get help through the Weyerhaeuser Foundation funded family gardens program.

PG Methodist School Garden in Punta Gorda
Photo by Michael McGuire

We plan on giving out 60 new micro-grants through the European Union (EU) funded project to help people wanting to start small income-generating enterprises in their villages. We have already approved and started disbursing 26 of them. We previously had given out 46 micro-grants during the last round of EU micro-grants. Officials of the Belize Rural Development Program (BRDP) came to the Toledo District to conduct monitoring and evaluation visits with the recipients of previous and present micro-grants. Plenty Belize has been disbursing these grants within the Toledo District since May of 2007. The two-day activity gave them an opportunity to visit approximately 85% of the recipients of the first round of funding (May-September 2007) and all of the most recent recipients. The field visits were led by Plenty's micro-grant field officer, Mr. Ermain Requena. BRDP representatives reported that they were impressed with the level of success being experienced by the recipients and the very tangible benefits to their lives and the lives of their families.

We want to especially thank the Atkinson Foundation, Onaway Trust and the incredibly dedicated individual Plenty donors who pledge monthly donations to Plenty Belize.

Participants in the Fourth Annual "Planning Your Micro-Enterprise" class
Photo by Ermain Requena

A Forest Home Village garden
Photo by Abib Palma