Fundraiser: WELLKIND Guatemala is Partnering with One Day’s Wages

By Walker Laughlin

The campaign

WELLKIND Guatemala is raising funds to continue supporting food security, economic development, and environmental sustainability in Tzununá, a village on Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. In collaboration with local leaders and community members, we work at the intersection of these initiatives by catalyzing organic home gardening projects, leading reforestation drives, and managing a weaving cooperative for indigenous women artisans.

WELLKIND is thrilled to announce a partnership with One Day’s Wages for our summer fundraising campaign. The organization connects grassroots organizations like WELLKIND Guatemala with donors around the world, using crowdfunding to support the efforts of groups like ours who are fighting global poverty, empowering communities, and protecting the environment. 

If we raise $15,025 with your donations on the One Day’s Wages website, they will match our goal for a total grant of $30,050! Our fundraising campaign with One Day’s Wages is critical for meeting our organization’s goals for 2021-2022. We will use the funds from this campaign to plant 5,000 new trees, build 50 new home gardens, and train 40 women to join the weaving co-op. 

100 percent of all donations (minus credit card fees) go to WELLKIND Guatemala. That means that every dollar you donate on the One Day’s Wages website will raise two dollars for our projects.

Our Work

In the past year, landowners from 55 families in Tzununá have helped us plant over 2,500 trees on their properties to build agroforestry systems, serving approximately 260 individuals in total. By the end of 2021, we hope to work with 50 additional families to plant 5,000 more trees and serve an additional 240 community members.

We also have worked with families to build over 65 organic home gardens. By the end of 2021, we aim to have built 80-100. 

Both of these projects offer a host of benefits to the holistic health of the village. For one, our projects boost the consumption of healthy greens among the families who plant them, aiding the village in its struggles with food insecurity and malnutrition. Second, the agroforests and gardens re-establish natural mechanisms for pest and disease control, stabilize the soil, and prevent the flow of pollutants into Lake Atitlán. Third, excess fruits and vegetables offer sustainable economic yields. In 2019, we established the village’s first market, where people sell excess produce to support their families. 

Our work in fair trade offers village residents another income source. Local women weavers in our artisan cooperative sell products wholesale to a games company called Buena Onda, earning enough to cover food and clothes for their families and to send their children to school. Starting with 25 members, we are training 40 more, hoping to have 65 members in our weaving cooperative by the end of 2021.

Our organization further empowers local community members by encouraging indigenous women and men to lead our programs. The leaders survey participating families to report their needs to us and lead neighborhood workshops in permaculture. In addition, the leaders give feedback on our projects and present them to the government, taking a major role in our relations with local authorities. 

How to support

Donate now to support our programs benefiting food security, economic development, political empowerment and environmental sustainability in Tzununá.

You can reach our fundraising campaign by visiting onedayswages.org. Hover over “OUR WORK,” click “MATCHING GRANTS,” and then scroll down to the heading titled “Double the impact of your donation: give to one of our matching grants.” Under that heading, you should find a thumbnail with “WELLKIND Guatemala” in the center. Hover over the image and click “GIVE” to visit our fundraising page! 

Or, simply click here to go directly to our fundraising page. 

Thank you for your support of WELLKIND Guatemala and the village of Tzununá.