On November 24, 2024, Fern and Ginny Remedi-Brown were invited to share about Sowing Opportunities at Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church’s Mission Moment, during their Sunday Worship Service. The video and what we talked about are below:
My name is Fern Remedi-Brown. My wife, Ginny, and I live in Malden. We formed the nonprofit Sowing Opportunities in 2018. The idea came after our then six-year-old daughter, Maya, who was adopted from Guatemala, asked to meet her “real mom.” As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I understood the need for biology. We located Maya’s biological mom in 2015 and met her in Guatemala when Maya was 10.
After our team saw the devastating poverty of their home in this extremely remote indigenous community of Chajmaic, they first provided for the family. They soon learned that the entire village is impoverished and, in 2017, our team worked with the local municipal government to set up a 600,000 gallon capacity water tank and infrastructure for easy access at each of the 250 families’ homes.
In 2020, Sowing Opportunities’ team began groceries deliveries to the entire village during the Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing hurricanes that caused up to 4 feet in flooding, and also set up a needs assessment with the families where we learned that 125 families were eager to learn agriculture in this rocky, unfarmable land to which they had been relegated during the 36-year genocide against the mostly Mayan indigenous people.
The agricultural project began in March 2022 when Sowing Opportunities’ expert agricultural engineer, worked for two months in a pilot project of 30 families. The results were astounding: When the team returned in August, they saw that the produce had grown at an unexpectedly fast rate. The 30 families had each harvested nearly 400 lbs. – or a total of 6 tons – of produce in 2022!
In January 2023, our team began to work with a second village in this region that is so remote that most Guatemalans don’t know it exists. It’s important to mention that there are almost no resources or infrastructure, no tourists and no governmental or nongovernmental assistance. To get there from Antigua, Guatemala requires 12 hours of concentrated travel through difficult and dangerous mountainous terrain.
Sowing Opportunities’ second greenhouse project is in Salaguna, which has mostly women leaders because many of the men left to try to get to the U.S. and the women were left to care for their children. The women are working against all odds, some breastfeeding interspersed with working, others are elders, in order to feed their families.
In January 2024, Sowing Opportunities began to provide agricultural resources to a third village in the region, Sisbilhá. Here, most families are also led by women and they work collaboratively. To get water, every day they have to walk ¾ of a mile to a mountain spring, throw a bucket down 65 feet through an uneven, rock-lined hole in the ground on a rope, pull it up, and after pouring it into another vessel, carry it on their backs, back to their homes. We are working with the municipal mayor on water solutions, which would have a significant positive impact on their health.
There is no shortage of need and Sowing Opportunities’ agricultural engineer is well-known now in the region. In the village of Salaguna, one of the men who remained in the area – one of the 15% who can speak Spanish – told our project manager in March 2023: “You are giving us more than greenhouses. You are giving us more than we can see. You are giving us respect, which no one else has. We are forgotten by the world.”
Sowing Opportunities is moving forward: in January 2025, we will be expanding in the third village, which meets all the criteria of need, capability and commitment to do the work . Each time we take on a new village, we build. The first, second, and third villages will continue to receive additional seedlings and to reinforce their prior training.
You can make your contribution at our website, www.sowingops.org .
I’ll be selling Guatemalan Fair Trade handicrafts at Coffee Hour today 12:00-1:00 to support our mission. My wife, Ginny Remedi-Brown, will have her handcrafted original jewelry on sale for your Christmas needs, as well. We’ll have a slideshow and will be able to take your questions!
Thank you so much for your attention!