Harvesting Hope for Indigenous Women in Nicaragua

Thanks to you, Indigenous women farmers of the Harvesting Hope project have the seeds, tools and training they need to raise food for heir families — and that's not all. MADRE and our local partners, Wangki Tangni, also run a women’s rights radio station. The station, called “Women of the Wangki,” reaches 115 remote communities along the north coast of Nicaragua. When women tune in, they receive important information on human rights, local support services, community-building activities and more.

Recently, we have started to broadcast a new program on Harvesting Hope. Through the broadcasts, local women are able to learn about the Harvesting Hope project and how they can get involved. What’s more, we use the radio program to promote our farmers’ markets, letting women know when and where they can sell their surplus crops.

Take Albertina, a Harvesting Hope participant. In these photos, she shows us her cabbage crops that she harvested in March. She plans to sell her cabbage at an upcoming MADRE-supported farmers’ market to raise extra money for her family — and she learned about it on the radio!

Already, the income she has raised through years of selling her crops has helped to improve her family’s quality of life. For example, in the last photo, Albertina is with her grandchildren in front of her new home, built with sturdy bricks that she was able to purchase thanks to the money she earned through Harvesting Hope.

In addition to sharing information on the Harvesting Hope project, the radio program also educates people on the impacts of climate change in local communities, and how to combat it. For example, where these women farmers live along the north coast of Nicaragua, sea temperatures are rising and storms are intensifying. They are more vulnerable than ever to climate-related disasters that threaten their harvests. Our radio program shares information on these growing climate change impacts. And women farmers learn solutions to confront it, like installing local seed bank to protect seeds from storms and hurricanes.

“We talk about the issue of climate change and how it is destroying our natural resources,” one of our radio broadcasters named Naidira told us. “Women learn to protect their natural resources.”

Thank you for supporting this project! With your support, women are surviving and even thriving. They are feeding their children and earning vital income to invest in their families and communities.