What are the Challenges Facing Rural Guatemalans? 

For generations, rural communities in Guatemala have faced a relentless cycle of food insecurity, severe health issues, and poverty.  

Almost 50% of children under 5 years of age suffer from chronic malnutrition, leading to stunting, weakened immunity, and poor brain development. 

Income and opportunities are low, and many leave their communities to find work abroad.  

However, as challenging as these issues may be, long-term solutions exist to alleviate these conditions and create a sustainable framework for change. 

The Seeds for a Future Solution 

Since 2009, Seeds for a Future has implemented a unique solution for better health and opportunity in communities throughout Guatemala. 

Instead of providing short-term aid to communities (which can be vital in an emergency), the Seeds for a Future Program provides long-term training and mentoring in permaculture and nutritional education while fostering micro-business opportunities. 

After 12 months of hands-on coaching from our extensionists, Program participants take charge, applying their skills to improve their family’s health and livelihoods, and inspiring their neighbors and other community members to get involved. 

Like many rural communities worldwide, Guatemalan communities often distrust new systems being introduced or imposed on them.  

Seeds for a Future understands this and operates within each community's cultural and social structures.  

An inherent aspect of Seeds' success in community development stems from its non-denominational and non-political core.  

Seeds for a Future offers the opportunity to live healthier, better lives on both the familial and community levels by reintroducing farming techniques and knowledge that were once an integral part of the culture but have been forgotten over the last five hundred years.  

The nutritional education component focuses on the First 1,000 Days, which provides mothers with training for healthy nutritional practices for the duration of their pregnancy and the first years of their infant's lives. 

Growing sustainable home gardens and understanding the importance of nutrition, Program participants are empowered to build better lives and combat the chronic stunting illnesses that have plagued Guatemalans for many decades. 

Extra food produced in home gardens can be shared with neighbors or sold at the market, creating new income and earning opportunities. 

The Seeds Program was developed to be affordable and replicable. Training guides for the extensionist team and Program participants are currently being translated from Spanish into English, along with videos, allowing the program to be adopted into rural communities worldwide. 

For more information about the program and how you can be a part of it, please visit the Seeds for a Future website.