SUPPORT FAMILIES IN DEVELOPING SOURCES OF INCOME
Members of The Pre-COVID Blessings Group, a teen business in El Tule, holding snacks they made from plantains and manioc.
Every family needs cash when the harvest is plentiful, and even more when the harvest fails.
Women need basics like cooking oil, salt, and sugar in order to make the traditional tortillas and to cook the eggs from their hens. Men buy hardware items to repair farming tools. Children need school supplies including uniforms, shoes, backpacks, notebooks, and pencils. Sustainable Villages Honduras (SVH) staff teach farmers to look for ways they can make money from successful agriculture such as selling coffee tree seedlings or growing a different type of banana that others buy as a treat.
Part of the job of the SVH facilitator is to work with groups and individuals that aspire to start businesses. The facilitator teaches simple accounting and business management to businesses and sometimes brings in experts from other non-profits for more sophisticated subjects. Pre-pandemic, in spring 2020, there were 88 members, including youth, women, and men, engaged in enterprise of some kind.”
Jerson Garcia shows off a hammock he made with his partner Gerson Briones. About 15 such hammocks were sold in the city of San Pedro Sula and elsewhere.
Pre-pandemic there were two enterprise groups to support new businesses and 5 agricultural committees that supported sales of agricultural products. Women have been encouraged to find ways to make snacks from what they have grown. Sometimes the husband and wife have worked together to sell vegetables from the kitchen garden or products made by the wife. Women in El Tule and La Majada have worked with the teens to help them create a small business selling snacks at soccer games or bottling homemade salsa. Two teens in El Tule created a business making hammocks and sold all they made in San Pedro Sula. The pandemic closed down the sales of these beautiful hammocks.
Members of a teen business in La Majada showing their bottles of salsa made from jalapeño peppers, carrots and potatoes.
The Entrepreneurs of El Limon
The Natural Medicine group of El Limon presents their packets of soap.
In 2022 entrepreneurs in El Limon made and sold products of natural medicine such as fenugreek capsules, turmeric, stone breaker and aloe-based soap to prevent hair loss. The group included 6 women, 5 men and 2 young people in El Limon. They created their own labels for their small plastic jars and sold to many customers.
Two members of the “Sendero de Luz” (Path of Light) present their packages of chicken.
Also in 2022, another group of entrepreneurs in El Limon, (including 5 young people, 3 women and 1 man) called itself the “Sendero de Luz” (Way of Light). They are dedicated to the sale of packages of chicken and have exchanged experiences with the owner of nearby Rapi-Cafe which has achieved success based on perseverance. They have succeeded in selling chicken in El Limon and at community activities in churches or community centers. The VH Facilitator Fernando Pineda helped them design a flyer to promote their product.