The Resource Foundation's member PDOs in Chile and Colombia provide low-income and at-risk youth with an accredited high school degree. They also offer vocational training in trades such as sewing, carpentry, metalworking, handicrafts, farming and animal husbandry so that the graduates may generate income for themselves and their families. Vocational training is critical for Latin America's youth, since few students will have the opportunity to continue their formal education beyond high school.

For example, The Resource Foundation's member, Origen, offers students basic education plus a certification program in sustainable agriculture, animal husbandry, bee-keeping, dairy processing and microenterprise skills. This prepares the students to produce agricultural products and manage their own businesses, which in turn supports the country's important agricultural sector and alleviates urban overpopulation. Origen likewise offers technical and microenterprise training to the community's adults through its dairy and honey processing facilities, established with generous support from Citigroup Foundation, Pfizer Foundation and Pfizer Animal Health. Located on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile's capital, Origen sells the school's organic products to city residents, and the proceeds help pay for school expenses, since the students attend free of charge.

Member PDOs in Mexico and Venezuela are helping to bridge the digital divide by installing computer labs in low-income schools, thus improving curriculum content with web-based materials and providing valuable skills for the workplace.

To enhance formal learning, members in El Salvador and Mexico have established interactive children's museums. These hands-on facilities help children learn about the world in which they live. Exhibits focus on science, the environment and culture. Donors sponsor school field trips for underprivileged children to visit the museums.

Most of Latin America’s low-income population lack the skills to get jobs in the formal economy.  Increasingly, self-employment is the solution to combating unemployment and poverty.  But microentrepreneurs don't have financial resources to purchase work materials and machinery, or any collateral for loans.  Microcredit programs offer the working poor, who are normally excluded from commercial banking services, with small loans to purchase supplies and equipment for income-producing activities.  To progress from subsistence to sustainability, empirical evidence suggests that in addition to loans microentrepreneurs require job skills training (woodworking, sewing, canning), business management training (cash flow, accounting, cost control, production, marketing), and access to post-production services (flash freezing, bar coding and product distribution channels).

Two thirds of The Resource Foundation's member PDOs offer a broad range of microenterprise training, technical assistance, credit and sales services to improve microentrepreneurs’ profits, in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.  The microenterprise PDOs give loans to microentrepreneurs through individual and community bank programs, at reasonable interest rates.  They manage revolving loan funds, which means that as loans are repaid, additional funds are available for new loans.  Microentrepreneurs are very reliable borrowers: loan repayment rates average over 90%.

Five of The Resource Foundation’s members have established fully regulated microfinance institutions and three more are in the process of doing so.  The non-profit organizations become the majority shareholder of the for-profit entities that manage savings and loan activities, and revenues help fund training and technical assistance.  This counteracts the region's high unemployment because the resulting microbusinesses employ between one and three individuals and generate income that improves the families' living standards.

Member organizations in Colombia, Ecuador and El Salvador help needy families build simple but dignified homes.  For example, Servivienda operates factories in Colombia’s principal cities, producing prefabricated materials for 10 houses per day.  The units, which range from $1,400 to $3,000 depending on the model, are built of cement slab, metal, hardwood and tile.  Families make a small down payment and Servivienda gives them a loan for the remainder, since the families would not be eligible for a bank mortgage.

A Servivienda technician and the family can erect a house in six hours.  Servivienda’s housing program has benefited 111,500 families (more than 557,200 individuals).  In addition, Servivienda has shared its methodology with housing groups throughout the developing world and has responded to natural disasters in other countries.  Servivienda’s integrated approach includes sewage management, sidewalk construction and tree planting projects.   Servivienda also has a social services department that promotes the legalization of land titles and provides social assistance, economic counseling, job skills training and other empowerment activities in the neighborhoods it helps to build.

For more information, check out The Resource Foundation's Homes of Hope Campaign and the participant story of Francisco and Adela Story.

Every year in Latin America millions of people die from preventable causes such as infections, gastrointestinal illness and pregnancy complications. The Resource Foundation's member agency, Fesperan, operates in the heart of the poor and undeveloped Amazon, bringing health treatment and training services to 135,000 people per year. It began with a "floating clinic," a riverboat that traveled the estuaries of the Amazon River providing critical health care to remote villages. Fesperan now complements its outreach to river communities with a full service clinic in the municipality of Santarém and comprehensive training to increase the number of health care professionals in the region.

Fesperan's average clinic patient has a family income is $175 per month (about $44 per individual). About 69% lives in rudimentary wood or palm leaf houses and only 18% has a telephone in the home. Only 5% of the area's population completes secondary school.

Through its train-the-trainer program, Fesperan prepares 25 instructors per year from different towns to teach 1,000 students in certification-level health care courses (Nurse Auxiliary, Lab Technologist, Dental Hygienist, Occupational Safety, etc.).  The program is generating exponential growth in health care access for the 250,000 inhabitants of Santarem.

The Resource Foundation has member PDOs in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela that also manage primary health care programs.  These include reproductive care, maternal-infant care and HIV awareness and prevention activities.

Sixteen of The Resource Foundation's member agencies, located in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, manage sustainable agriculture programs. These combine environmental education and protection with improved farming techniques. Sustainable farming leads to higher yields, improved diets and increased self-reliance since farmers generate more income to purchase food they cannot grow for their families. Programs teach water conservation and management, soil erosion, terrace farming, use of solar energy for greenhouses and homes, crop rotation, animal husbandry, composting and reforestation.

For example, Fundación Mexicana para el Desarrollo Rural (Mexican Rural Development Foundation, known as FMDR) works through 40 affiliated rural development centers located in almost all of the states of Mexico. One of their most successful programs is The Milk Project. Dairy farmers have improved the quantity and quality of milk production and have learned to make cheese, yogurt and cream to diversify products. With FMDR's training and assistance, the farmers form co-ops and have better product distribution and pricing capability.

Six member agencies promote environmental conservation through education and ecological reserve management.  For example, Arbofilia in Costa Rica is working to reestablish an ecosystem that begins with mangrove forests on the coast, extends through the lowland rain forest and culminates in the highland "cloud forest."  Reconnecting the corridor is crucial for protecting the area's endangered flora and fauna.

The Resource Foundation's member agencies combine environmental conservation with income-generating projects, such as plant and tree nurseries, sustainable fishing and ecotourism.  Meeting the inhabitants' need to provide for their families in this way proves that environmental protection and human progress are not mutually exclusive.  It also ensures sustainable conservation over time, since the area residents recognize that their economic well-being is linked to the environment.

Other member PDOs in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Venezuela manage similar environmental conservation and education programs.

Agua Para El Pueblo in Honduras is active throughout the country's rural areas, promoting self-help potable water and sanitation projects in underprivileged communities that do not receive government services.  The communities dig trenches, lay pipe and create a water management committee for distribution and maintenance.  Latrine and outhouse construction is a critical for ensuring that water sources remain uncontaminated.  Member PDOs in Brazil, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela manage similar programs.  Read about a trip volunteer’s experience helping install a potable water system in The Prayer of El Pinolito.