In Q2 2022, Strategies for International Development (SID) received $10,000 in unrestricted funding to support various projects taking place as part of its sustainable coffee-growing program in the highlands of Guatemala. These include a partnership with The Ministry of Education to develop lessons for teaching twenty-eight practices for “Graduating from Poverty with Coffee” in primary schools. SID also is working to improve the nine-page description that municipal officials will use for educational purposes in their training with farmers.

Additionally, SID has already begun using business development conferences to reach farmers in levels outside of the original group of early adopters (those eager to incorporate new and better farming techniques). At each conference, early-adopter farmers share their results with farmers in the outlier groups. These meetings serve to complement the work of municipal officials and primary school teachers.

In the area they serve (Alta Verapaz, Guatemala), COVID has been controlled, and municipal officials have now resumed their meetings with farmers. Additionally, schools have reopened and farmers have recovered from the heavy rains of Hurricanes Eta and Iota. These factors should allow SID to regain the momentum lost as both COVID and the hurricanes prevented completion of certain program goals during 2021.

SID helps poor farmers graduate from poverty by helping them build successful farm businesses that increase their income. This includes conserving the natural resources upon which their agro-businesses depend and helping women play an equal role in building these businesses.

In Q2 2022, Trickle Up received $20,000 in general operating support to further their work and increase their investment in helping program participants build climate resilience in their businesses and livelihoods. Since 1979, Trickle Up has supported 450,000 women in forging sustainable pathways out of extreme poverty, benefiting an estimated 2.25 million people. In 2022, Trickle Up will partner with another 20,000 women impacting 100,000 people.Recent accomplishments of Trickle Up include the launch of FUERTE, a project reaching 6,000 indigenous and extremely poor women in Mexico who have been affected

by crises like climate change and COVID-19. The organization also has made significant progress in increasing, streamlining, and standardizing its use of digital tools – by program participants, partners, coaches, and staff – to improve access to information, efficiency and scalability.

Trickle Up participants are among the most vulnerable and least resourced in the world. The organization invests in them by providing skills training, coaching, cash grants, linkages to government services, and helping establish solidarity and peer support among women, including their participation in savings groups.

In Q2 2022, Lifewater received $10,000 in unrestricted funding to impact approximately 300 people in two Ugandan villages. Each target community has a staggering amount of its population (85-90%) using an unsafe drinking source during the dry season as well as undue burdens put on women and girls regarding their time and safety when trekking lengthy distances to acquire clean water when it is available. Additionally, the villages have very limited concept of hand washing and its role in preventing diarrhea, particularly in regard to preventing illness in children.  By providing  access to safe water, sustainable sanitation solutions, and hygiene education, the beneficiaries of this program will gain the ability to stabilize their general health in the future and allow women and girls to safely utilize their time for better purposes.

In Q1 2022, Shared Interest received a one-time grant for $10,000 in unrestricted funding. The proposed grant would support the updating of our five-year strategic plan to reflect two major events: first, the impact of Covid-19, and second, our recent leadership transition. These changes have resulted in new organizational needs and created exciting opportunities to scale their impact.

In Q1 2022, Upaya Social Ventures received a one-time grant for $10k to focus on Covid recovery as we ramp up services to our partner companies and resume jobholder

in-person surveys. As we discussed on the phone, throughout the pandemic we have been committed to supporting all our partners and their jobholders in weathering this crisis. The West Foundation’s support in 2020 enabled us to do that. We respectfully request funding for Upaya to continue building on our efforts to stabilize our partners and jobholders so that they have a strong foundation on which to face the unpredictable impact of Covid-19.

CoCoDa (Companion Community Development Alternatives) connects United States citizens, churches, service clubs, universities, and organizations with grassroots cooperatives and community development organizations in El Salvador and Nicaragua. The West Foundation is pleased to share this update on their behalf:

In a time of pandemic, being able to wash your hands is the most basic of needs. In 2022, thanks to the support of the West Foundation, CoCoDA successfully completed a solar-powered retrofit for the Acrasame Water System in La Mora, El Salvador. This project decreased costs for water by 60% by adding 96 solar panels to power the system’s pumps during daylight. While the system will occasionally need to pump at night, the reductions of electrical costs have both extended the sustainability of this water system and reduced costs to the families that benefit from the system.  In all, this project has impacted over 600 families and about 2100 people. This project works out to be an investment of $4.25 a year, per family, for 25 years of sustainable water.

In addition, funds were used to support two women’s health initiatives in response to the pandemic. The first was the construction of a private examination office for the La Mora Clinic, which allowed more privacy and safety during a time when quarantine and distancing were important.

The second initiative brought needed support to the Association of Midwives in the municipality of Suchitoto, El Salvador as they met the needs of pregnant women during the pandemic months when transportation to the local hospitals and clinics was both difficult and potentially dangerous.  Funding supported transportation costs as well as vitamins and basic equipment.  A video about this important work is available to view here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtPvrejDZl8&t=2s.

Learn more about CoCoDa’s work at their website: CoCoDA – Connecting communities to communities; connecting people to people.

In Q2 2022, Mothers2Mothers received installment 3 of 3 on a 3-year grant totaling $22,500 in unrestricting funding. This grant supports the empowerment of women to eliminate pediatric AIDS.

In Q2 2022, VisionSpring received its first installment on a three-year, $45,000 grant to partially fund the first decade of the Patricia Sagna Memorial Internship for Women of Color in Logistics. The internship is named in honor of a former VisionSpring employee, Patricia Sagna, who skillfully managed VisionSpring’s global supply chain from 2018-2019 and touched the VisionSpring family with her humor, curiosity and friendship.

The internship is designed to advance more women, particularly women of color, into the fields of international development and supply chain management with practical knowledge, global experience and mentorship.

In Q1 2022, Hesperian Health Guides received a one-time grant for $15,000 in unrestricted funding to support and expand their work to create new multilingual health resources for people worldwide. Hesperian’s content, delivered as print materials, digital resources, and mobile apps, helps people take greater control over their own health and organize for equal access to health and healthcare. Renewed funding will enable Hesperian to create and distribute much-needed health guides and tools that offer individuals and communities the knowledge they need to take action for the mental and physical health of women and girls; to protect people’s bodies and surroundings from the effects of environmental degradation; to support vulnerable populations in need of up-to-date information about COVID-19; and to improve the health of people living in resource-poor communities worldwide.

In Q1 2022, Smiles Forever received a one-time grant for $10,000 in unrestricted funding for continued work in developing a dental system for Bolivia, one of the world’s poorest countries. The organization’s strategy for this is based on the idea of prevention over restoration, leading to better oral and general health. Specifically, the program trains Bolivian dental technicians to treat patients with SDF (Silver Diamine Fluoride), which arrests tooth decay while rebuilding the tooth structure. SDF is also used to protect “virgin teeth” from cavities. Additionally, technicians are taught to utilize a SMART FILLING technique that makes the treated tooth stronger and has the added benefit of being more aesthetically pleasing than the previously used materials. All work is completed without local anesthetic or drilling of the tooth.

KickStart International is a nonprofit social enterprise with a mission to lift millions of people out of poverty quickly, cost-effectively, and sustainably by selling affordable irrigation pumps to small-scale farmers. The West Foundation is pleased to share this update on their behalf:

KickStart continued its program to build sustainable, profitable, and climate resilient farming enterprises across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), as rural communities face the compounding challenges of a historic drought, the Covid-19 pandemic, and economic crisis. In 2022, KickStart quickly adapted to respond to the new context, empowering more than 50,000 women, men, and children across SSA to move out of poverty—35% more than in FY21.

We set our sights to the challenges and aspirations of a new day, unveiling a new logo, designed to represent KickStart’s vision for change – the continental transformation that is possible through irrigation.

The pandemic continues to have prolonged effects on Africa’s smallholders, who remain responsible for feeding their families and neighbors, despite extraordinary economic and climatic shocks. The crisis in Ukraine has further exasperated the food security situation in Kenya and countries across East Africa, which rely heavily on wheat and fertilizer imports from Ukraine and Russia. As combined economic and environmental forces increase production demands on smallholders, the rising cost of agricultural inputs is diminishing their capacities to respond.

At this critical juncture, KickStart is working with local and national government partners to advance this important agenda, in a joint effort to extend irrigation solutions to the most vulnerable farmers. At the grassroots, we have worked to expand financial access to the lowest income bracket by increasing the reach of our most affordable irrigation innovation, the Starter Pump, and creating linkages with farmer friendly loans and local financing partners. KickStart made investments in its targeted marketing and promotional strategy, driving direct to farmer sales through the local supply chain via wide-reaching radio campaigns. Meanwhile, KickStart introduced its MoneyMaker pumps and training services to an increased number of NGO and INGO partners, working with their program teams to boost livelihoods, food security, and climate resilience.

In 2023, KickStart will continue to expand its impacts and irrigation tools across sub-Saharan Africa to lift thousands more men, women, and children out of poverty quickly, cost-effectively, and efficiently.

In Q1 2022, blueEnergy received a one-time grant for $10,000 to support its overall vision and mission. In Nicaragua, blueEnergy is launching a multi-year initiative to deliver improved access to safe drinking water and increased nutritional and food security for women heads-of-households, as well as the disabled and the elderly. They are also expanding their “Climate Smart Schools” initiative, partnering with grade schools in the region to strengthen their climate change resilience through water and hygiene infrastructure, soil, and food-producing garden bed improvements. To further blueEnergy’s long-term sustainability in Nicaragua they are working to secure their campus, which houses their model center, offices, and production shop in the city of Bluefields. In Ethiopia, they are focusing on providing solar-powered water pumping systems and efficient cookstoves for better water access, health, and nutrition.

TechnoServe helps people lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the power of the private sector. We are grateful for the longstanding support from The West Foundation that has spanned decades and helped to further TechnoServe’s mission. Together, we are fighting poverty by helping people build regenerative farms, businesses and markets that increase incomes.

(From contributing writer: Andrea Stepanski, Manager, Major Gifts, TechnoServe)

With generous funding from The West Foundation, we have improved our Monitoring and Evaluation systems, supported smallholder farmers in Tanzania’s tea industry to improve their livelihoods, and are currently supporting women-led households in Peru’s cocoa-growing communities.

Good cocoa is the starting point for good chocolate, but it can also be the beginning of a better life. No one understands this better than the hardworking women cocoa farmers who are participating in our project funded by The West Foundation in Peru. Since 2017, the project has helped nearly 100 women increase their production and improve the quality of their lives.

Prior to the project, many of the women farmers struggled for years to sustain their farms without access to traditional agronomy programs and faced severe challenges in providing for their families. The West Foundation project aimed to close this gap by providing unique and targeted training to reach women successfully and help them to lift themselves out of poverty.

Thanks to support from The West Foundation, participants are learning best practices in agronomy, financial literacy, and leadership. The project’s goal is to help the women feel empowered as farmers, economic agents, and leaders in their communities.

The results have been outstanding—the 90 participants in the project have experienced average yield increases of 62% just last year alone, which has created a 75% increase in gross income. Additionally, all 90 participants were able sell their cocoa production to cooperatives and direct exporters and 40 participants now have the Rainforest Alliance seal.

Photo courtesy: TechnoServe