Where We Work

LENGUA-LANGUAGE: Spanish

The Seres Centre will be located in Chimaltenango, Guatemala working with rural communities from across Central America. Our focus is primarily poor farmers (campesinos) from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras – the four poorest countries in the region.

In these countries, the majority of campesinos practice destructive agricultural techniques introduced during the industrial revolution in the 1950’s. In addition to slash and burn methods, they are heavily reliant on industrial agricultural chemicals – many of which are highly toxic and have been banned in more developed countries. Slowly but surely, these techniques are destroying the land and ecosystems on which these farmers depend. This leads to widespread urban migration, bringing about a range of additional challenges such as urban poverty and loss of cultural identity that many of the large cities in these countries are struggling to deal with.

With the exception of Honduras, these countries also experienced violent civil wars during the last 50 years, with high casualties amongst the rural population. Aside from causing major economic disruption, these casualties resulted in a loss of traditional indigenous knowledge – a large part of which relates to agricultural techniques that have been practiced by these communities for hundreds of years.
Our aim is to help these communities to once again become thriving, resilient communities – helping them re-learn traditional techniques and introducing them to more sustainable and resilient agricultural practices.
Visit some of our community projects:
Papaturro, El Salvador
La Independencia, Guatemala