The Chicken Project

We continue to focus on the chicken project as an initiative to combat hunger and contribute to food security for a number of families around Cubulco.

The current global inflation impacts the Guatemalan economy as well and there are many families who struggle to find something to eat every day.

Additionally, preexistent factors continue to challenge the daily lives of many. These factors include unemployment and the tendency to drop out of school to emigrate to the US in what often seems to be the only viable solution.

For generations men have gone to the coastal sugar plantations or coffee farms for months at a time in an effort to provide for their families, given that there are very few employment opportunities in Cubulco. Even young people who manage to get an education are often discouraged as it can be very challenging to find meaningful employment.

Guatemala’s population is 17.2 million. 11.8 million are available for work (68%) and of that group, 7.4 million are working (63%), 4.4 million are unemployed (37%) and 164.6 thousand (2.2%) are unable to find anything to do at all (National Institute of Statistics, ENEI.pdf).

These area not only statistics but real people. Consequently, we are eager to begin the project with poor families in the hopes of contributing to a decent life that mitigates the vicious cycle of poverty.

Thank you to your donations, we will be buying tin roof material, chicken wire, chickens, feed and the cost of the training sessions.

Our First Training Session

On Thursday October the 6, we had our first worshop training. 12 represented families where there at the worshop for the chicken project. Willy in the yellow shirt and Uribe in the blue shirt were our facilitators for that day.

Their experience in the field made the worshop easy to follow and a hands on training  was a plus.

Thanks to the donations of Central Presbyterian Church in Cambridge, we were able to start the training.

What We Learned: 

1. We learned how to make organic chicken food from scratch.
2. Also, we learned how to make a herbal base remedy for parasites.
3. And, an herbal base cough syrup.

Everything we made was made from organic herbs like, basil, cilantro, garlic, eucalyptus leaves, and rosemary. We even used marigold leaves which we had foraged on our way back from a prayer meeting.