Social worker Licenciada Lety gets commitment of the women in Sisbilhá, December 2023
Sowing Opportunities’ team left a day earlier than the anticipated January 14, in case there might be roadblocks starting at the time that the new President of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, was to be inaugurated – in case there were delays and protests. They made it safely to the remote region in Eastern Alta Verapaz, and began working with the new village, Sisbilhá.
The team had brought the necessary supplies for the participants – mostly women – to begin building their greenhouses: wood boards, iron arches for the roofs, plastic tarps for the roofs and ground cover, seedlings, soil, and proprietary insecticide and fertilizer.
Everyone helped to bring the supplies from the trucks into the remote indigenous village:
And, everyone participated in every aspect of the process, including cutting the plastic that arrived in rolls:
The women are delighting in holding up pieces of plastic that were just cut to make the roofs of the greenhouses at their homes. See the joy in their faces and the spiritedness in the way they hold the plastic.Sowing Opportunities’ expert Agricultural Engineer lives among the people with whom he works for the duration of the training. Here he is, walking hand-in-hand with two young family members, while their older brother and their mom walk ahead with their younger sibling (note the feet sticking out of the sack!)
The Sowing Opportunities team visited each of the 30 greenhouses to see how they were progressing and to offer advice:
Sowing Opportunities’ project manager visits participants’ greenhouses in SisbilháA family participating in the greenhouses project in Sisbilhá delights in their work achievedWomen participants in Sowing Opportunities‘ 2024 agricultural collaboration, in Sisbilhá, Guatemala, proudly stand with the expert agricultural engineer.A family’s progress on their greenhouse in Sisbilhá – on the left is the frame of the greenhouse, on the right is a completed greenhouse with soil, on top is the iron arch for the roofingSowing Opportunities’ expert Agricultural Engineer assists participant in mounting iron arch to make a roof over her greenhouse in Sisbilhá
Participant in Sisbilhá inspects the corn she has planted in black plastic bags, elevated so that chickens don’t eat the kernels before they grow
Participants in Sisbilhá listen to Sowing Opportunities’ expert Agricultural Engineer as he describes the process of building greenhousesParticipants in Sisbilhá bow their heads in prayer, led by Sowing Opportunities Project Manager
