Sustainable Harvest International (SHI), an environmental nonprofit with over 25 years of experience partnering with smallholder farmers to adopt regenerative practices, is excited to host YASC volunteers for a week of service this summer with two SHI partnering communities (Piedras Gordas and Bermejo). This service trip and future ones will contribute to SHI's work to train Central American farmers in farming techniques that nourish families and help restore our planet.
Presented below is a list of projects that we anticipate offering:
• Community Garden - volunteers will construct a community garden and make organic fertilizers (e.g., bokashi) at the school grounds or homes of families in the community.
• Reforestation/Agroforestry - volunteers will help create agroforests by establishing coffee plantations and planting a variety of trees that provide food, timber, shade and carbon sequestration while restoring wildlife habitat.
• Regenerative Agriculture - volunteers will help establish regenerative agriculture plots to increase farm production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity through activities such as making organic fertilizers (including compost), building terraces, or erosion control measures, creating plant nurseries and planting staple crops (e.g. corn, beans, rice and medicinal plants).
• Light Duty Project Ideas - we are exploring a few project ideas in case the primary activities are too physically demanding for some participants.
• Health & Nutrition Workshop - volunteers will give a health and nutrition workshop to community members sharing information and tips on how to prepare healthy recipes with produce grown and consumed by SHI farming families.
• Community Signs - volunteers will paint signs raising environmental awareness to be placed throughout the school grounds and within the community.
Additionally, there's also the possibility for some volunteers to measure impacts of the shift to agroecology on SHI farms. Depending on the skills of the volunteers, this could focus on one or more of the following: general soil testing, soil biodiversity with eDNA testing, farm biodiversity through ecoacoustic surveys, collection of coordinates for shape files for future AI assessments and measurements of carbon in soils and trees.
For questions or further information feel free to contact trip producer Alicia Morris ’99 or João Aleixo at the YAA.
