A Woman We Are Proud Of: Aracelly Martínez from Honduras

Aracelly Martínez is a 30 year old small farmer and community leader from La Moskitia, an indigenous region located at the border of Honduras with Nicaragua. The heart of the Moskitia Coast of Central America is the Coco River, which is the border between Nicaragua and Honduras. At both sides of the river, the Moskitia people have been struggling for centuries to achieve sustainable livelihoods in a context of war, poverty and natural disasters.

Through a food security project supported by ICCO, Aracelly became part of a women’s group that received funding to start community enterprises.

Climate Resilient Practices

Aracelly lives in Suhí, a remote forest village where she and her husband raise 4 daughters. This region is composed of small communities scattered around the woods, with none or limited access to electricity and safe drinking water. Their main economic activities are self-subsistence forestry and agriculture; in collective community yards, families grow crops like rice, cassava, plantain and corn.

In 2016, Aracelly began participating in trainings provided by local organization CASM, ICCO’s partner in Honduras. With these trainings, 50 small farmer families learned to apply climate resilient practices to increase productivity, diversify their crops, and produce all year long, even throughout the rainy season.

Working Together

But the greatest benefit she obtained came from working with other women. In Suhí and in 4 other neighbor communities, women created groups to apply to co-investments opportunities, funded by the project. As a result, the women installed small poultry farms in their yards, and are now selling eggs to the School’s Meal Program, a state run initiative sponsored by the World Food Program.

As part of the project, women were also trained to prepare organic protein food for their chicken, and to treat poultry diseases with herbal medicine.

By selling eggs, Aracelly and her family are not only strengthened with a new steady income, they are also producing healthier eggs for children in the community.

“We have been given something good, something important; almost all of the women enjoy being in a group and being organized with other women. We work well together, and this is something that we didn’t do before. Now we sell eggs for the children in the school and that makes me happy because it’s good for them but also beneficial for my family”.

About the Project

The project Sustainable Productive Improvement for Food Security in the Honduran Moskitia aims to improve the socioeconomic, food security and environmental situation of Moskitia communities in Honduras, through agricultural improvements and forestry production alternatives. The project pays particular attention to women, nurturing their potential to generate income. The project was part of the program Climate Change Adaptation in the Forest Sector, implemented by the Deutsche Gesselschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Government of Honduras, with funds from the European Union.,