SONSONATE, El Savador

Central America

 

The primary issue for Sonsonate is poverty, where the Nahuat Peoples live at a subsistence level.  

Over the past nine years, community food security successes include:

 

• Restored nearly six acres on denuded land for sustainable farming and biodiversity

• Built an ecological wastewater treatment system, providing soil seed and farm supplies for five acres of corn, beans, and squash

• Installed a rainwater collection system to collect rain at the top of the ridge and gravity feed irrigation water to the fields below.

• Planted over 7,000  trees to enhance surrounding biodiversity to traditional community houses

• Built several high-efficiency stoves to keep the air clean, save wood, and address the respiratory problems of women who otherwise would breathe wood smoke working over open cookfire stoves.

 

This work provides a demonstration of the possibilities to the greater community, provides a forum for interchange between different indigenous groups in Meso-America, and helps build capacity for community food security and to replicate projects and benefits beyond the site.