The Equilibrium Fund (TEF)

Prize Finalist 2008

Organisation name

The Equilibrium Fund (TEF)
http://www.theequilibriumfund.org/

Testimonial

We are honored by being shortlisted for the Rio Tinto Alcan Prize. Because we work in remote communities in poor countries and it is difficult for us to generate publicity for our work. We welcome this opportunity for Rio Tinto Alcan Prize to promote our programs and help us better achieve our mission.

Financial resources

Annual income US$203,000

Geographical focus

Central America & the Caribbean

Issue focus

Gender, Environment, Biodiversity, Food Security, Poverty, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.

Key achievements

• Motivation of communities and local government to plant 800,000 Maya Nut trees since 2001
• Provide training and capacity building for 11 women's Maya Nut producer groups in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico. These groups now produce and market Maya Nut products to create jobs and income for women
• Rescue of lost indigenous knowledge about the Maya Nut tree in over 385 communities in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica and Cuba.

Mission

The mission of The Equilibrium Fund (TEF) is to help rural and indigenous communities in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean find balance between people, food and forests by teaching them about the value of the Maya Nut (Brosimum alicastrum) for food, income and ecosystem services. 

Background

Since 2001 The Equilibrium Fund has taught over 10,000 women about the uses, processing, food value and commercialization of the Maya Nut. By teaching women to harvest Maya Nut from natural forest for food and income, we motivate them to conserve the rainforest and plant more trees for future harvests. By eating Maya Nut regularly, families are healthier, children get sick less often and perform better in school. By producing and selling Maya Nut, women earn a fair wage, often for the first time in their lives.

Maya Nut forests provide 4 times more calories, ten times more protein and 100 times more micronutrients per hectare than corn. Maya Nut provides a complete protein, similar to that of meat, making it an excellent food for low income rural families who are often too poor to buy meat and other nutritious foods. The Equilibrium Fund works to promote local production and consumption of Maya Nut foods to help solve the malnutrition crisis in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, where almost 50% of rural children under 5 years old are chronically malnourished due to lack of access to high quality foods.

Today in 2009, more than 60 local partner organizations in 5 countries implement the Maya Nut Program independently or in partnership with TEF.  More than 800,000 new Maya Nut trees have been planted in communities as a direct result of this work. These Maya Nut "food forests" will provide a source of food for both humans and wildlife and valuable ecosystem services (soil, water and biodiversity protection, carbon sequestration, mitigation of climate change impacts) for at least 200 years to come.

Maya Nut workshops cost USD$20 per woman trained and result in permanent changes in women's attitudes towards rainforest conservation, improved self-esteem and status in the family and the community and income accruing directly to women.

Management

The Maya Nut Program is implemented in partnership with over 60 local governmental, private and nongovernmental partners in the countries where TEF work. The Program catalyzes innovative partnerships by integrating ECONOMIC, SOCIAL and ENVIRONMENTAL sustainability in a single program. TEF and local partners plan to identify or establish a regional counterpart in Central America to manage the Maya Nut Program independently by 2010.

The partnership programme, HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS is a rural school lunch program which is providing Maya Nut school lunches to children in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico (in 2009). HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS fosters economic sustainability by creating a local market for Maya Nut. This creates a situation in which rural communities directly experience the benefits of their productive activities (in contrast to export-based economies). HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS will be self-financing by 2016 when the Maya Nut "food forests" currently being planted in communities begin to produce seed. In this way, communities will produce their own food for school lunches and can sell Maya Nut products to finance other activities.
This program provides unique opportunities for public-private partnerships which bring benefits to all parties, including rural children.

Partnerships

As an example of programme partnership, HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS is being implemented in Guatemala in 2009 with a Maya Nut producer group (Alimentos Nutri-Naturales, an international NGO (Rainforest Alliance), a local NGO (Association of Community Forest Concessionaires), the Guatemalan Ministry of the Environment, the Guatemalan Ministry of Education and the largest rural bank in Guatemala (BanRural).  This partnership is working with the goal of creating a national policy which will incorporate several key principles of HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS school lunch program:

• Strengthen local economies by valuing local foods
• Alleviate chronic malnutrition by incorporating more nutritious foods
• Educate children and mothers about health and nutrition
• Foster cultural pride in Guatemala's Maya heritage.

TEF and the Ministry of Education plan to scale-up this partnership in the next three years to include hundreds of schools in the most food-insecure parts of Guatemala.

Impact achieved

TEF's major achievements include:

• Rescuing lost indigenous knowledge about the Maya Nut for food
• Raising awareness of the food and income potential of the Maya Nut tree;
• Creating and implementing the first Maya Nut school lunch program in Central America (in Guatemala) as a replicable and sustainable model, which is already being replicated in Nicaragua and Mexico
• Motivating communities and local government to plant 800,000 Maya Nut trees
• Publishing and disseminating the world's first Maya Nut cookbook
• Facilitating the formation of 11 women's Maya Nut producer groups
• Facilitating, publishing and disseminating a sustainable management plan for Maya Nut in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala
• HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS meets 5 of 8 MDGs
• Impact on beneficiaries- HEALTHY KIDS, HEALTHY FORESTS improves the nutritional status of school-age children in Guatemala, resulting in better health, less family expenditures on medicines, better performance in school and increased interest in conservation and reforestation
• Creating conditions for community-based rainforest management

Contact

For further information please contact Erika Vohman, Executive Director
Email: info@theequilibriumfund.org