By Ben Blevins | CEO
This past week, our partners participated in various meetings and workshops on sustainability and fostered community-led solutions for local impacts of climate change. For instance,the AMA circles of Tejutla and Chamac met with AMA’s community facilitators to discuss the potential of reforestation, irrigation, and rain gardens as solutions to the challenges brought by changing weather patterns.
For context, climate change has been causing visible impacts on the weather patterns in the Guatemalan highlands, leading to unpredictable precipitation for many communities where some periods are completely dry and others have intense rain. This results in devastating mudslides for many mountainous communities as the terrain cannot adequately retain the overabundance of water.
One solution that is currently being implemented is our reforestation project as trees help improve the consistency of rainfall as well as mitigate the risk of mudslides by improving soil and water retention. In particular, the women were discussing how to convert old water jugs into a drip irrigation system to be planted next to new saplings and ensure their longevity.
Additionally, our community members met to discuss the potential of rain gardens that will be the focus of our campaign next year to improve water retention and community safety even further. Rain gardens are prevalent in many parts of the world and can be used to reduce runoff and flooding, filter out pollutants, and conserve water. We will be taking volunteers down to support the implementation of this campaign, and encourage anyone interested in traveling with us to click on the link below and fill out our trip interest form!
Ultimately, while these efforts are mainly centered around climate change, they further our mission of building empowerment as local women have an opportunity to be actively involved in mitigating the threats facing their communities, and we are excited to keep working with them to find solutions and build community agency.
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By Madison Sweitzer | Outreach Director
By Madison Sweitzer | Outreach Director
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