Normally the women are very quiet but when I did this activity I had a woman get very excited and tell us all sorts of interesting stuff about a plant I had never even heard of. It was fantastic.
Taco van Ieperen and Lara Arnott, two of our roving GlobalGiving Ambassadors, have an excellent blog called Shatter the Fog. Their most recent post describes their visit to a project facilitated by Agros in Chiapas, Mexico.
We take our education for granted, yet here anything past grade 6 requires a minor miracle.In their blog, Taco and Lara describe the heartbreaking conditions they see - but also inspiring progress that makes them optimistic. Under this project, a mere $60 donation provides a small business loan for animal husbandry, agriculture, or textiles.
Their whole post is worth reading, but let me just quote their closing paragraph:
The problem of poverty isn´t going to be solved easily. The billions of dollars we've wasted in the last 50 years show that we can't just pay people's way out of poverty. Leaving poverty behind means leaving behind old ways of thinking. It means educating children, building infrastructure, changing diets, and learning how to work together. It also requires extraordinary sensitivity to local cultures. It won´t be easy, but organizations like Agros are stepping up to the challenge.
 | Support Sustainability for Mexican Farmers Enable one family in a new Agros village in Mexico to increase its income through various economic and agricultural projects and to fulfill individual and communal goals. Theme: Economic Development | Location: Mexico | Need: $7,535 |  |
