The Mesoamerican Institute of Permaculture celebrates 25 years of work
Earth Rising Foundation is proud to support the important work of The Institute for Mesoamerican Permaculture (IMAP). IMAP is celebrating their 25th anniversary of operations this April. We want to congratulate them on this achievement and all their incredible work! Please read below to learn more about IMAP’s most recent efforts.
IMAP aims for comprehensive well being of the peoples of Mesoamerica. We work to promote food sovereignty, protect biodiversity, increase agricultural education, and strengthen small scale local farmers. We are located on the beautiful Lake Atitlan in Solola, Guatemala and it is a high priority for us to educate our communities about protecting and preserving the lake.
Through the support of the Earth Rising Fund we are promoting permaculture education by establishing comprehensive gardens with the help of 12 children from Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta Colonia San Andres, the only school in the community, to build a culture amongst the students and teachers that values and honors the environment.
We hosted three workshops for students and teachers on how to care for a garden and increase climate change resilience in their community. The workshops included training on how to properly clean the area, design and install irrigation, plant native plants, and organize daily watering. We explained how to reuse resources such as tires, glass bottles, plastic containers, stones, sacks, and fruit fiber to build infrastructure for the garden. Through these actions, we are preserving ancestral knowledge, native seeds, and increasing environmental awareness. Our goal is to educate our community, especially the children about the importance of protecting Lake Atitlán ecosystem, caring for a garden, and reusing available resources to do so.
We are confident that this initiative is a vital strategy to increase food sovereignty, protect native and naturalized seeds, and deepen the connection to culture in our indigenous communities by exposing children to environmental education in their formative years.
Against the context of rising food costs and pollution in our lake, this work builds lasting relationships between our children and their land and their culture.