The Yucatan Project
 In collaboration with a local nonprofit organization, Ayuda para Ayudar, we are working with 53 Mayan communities in the Yucatan peninsula. We are currently supporting close to 130 individuals with over $15,000 in micro loans. Beneficiaries of our loans focus mainly on the production of honey, handicrafts and small-scale agriculture, and with the help of Fundacion Produce a plant to produce Habanero Salsa has been built. Our intention is to bring the salsa to the U.S. Market by the end of this year. Objective: To design, develop and implement sustainable ventures through training and expertise of students and professionals in the field.
The Yucatan project has offered the possibility of some institutional collaboration with other Universities within the Houston area as well as in Mexico. For instance, in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Studies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the UST Micro Credit Program is conducting a study to certify that the bee farming activities we are helping finance in these Mayan communities of the Yucatan jungle, are not only empowering our beneficiaries (mostly women) and helping them to become economically independent, as well as, preserving one of the last areas of well preserved Mayan jungle. The purpose of the study is to certify, from an environmental and socioeconomic perspective, how bee farming is an activity that does not only has no negative impact on the environment, but helps it by promoting and guaranteeing key cycles of life in the jungle. And by helping the jungle we are not only helping the planet, we are also helping the jaguar, a sacred animal for the Mayans, currently threatened by what we call “development”. Therefore, our loans are not only allowing the production of great tasting honey, but also, our loans are empowering women, promoting free and fair trade practices, helping to protect the jungle, and contribute to environmentalists’ efforts to save the jaguar.
Another example of this institutional collaboration is the efforts we are currently making to establish a partnership between the four main Universities of the Greater Houston area in order to create a 4,000 USD revolving fund to expand our bee farming activities in the Yucatan. Sam Houston State University, the University of Houston and Rice University, are joining efforts with the UST Micro Credit Program to come up with 1,000 USD each in order to create a collective fund that will be added to the already existing revolving fund. This fund will continue to be administrated by Fundacion Ayuda para Ayudar, our field partner in the Yucatan; the idea is that students and faculty members of these universities, interested in any aspect of development or social entrepreneurship, have a concrete opportunity to conduct actual work in the field and experience first-hand how this development project works and how it can be improved. This way, we hope, the project becomes more comprehensive and capable to achieve its goals in a more efficient way.
Three Pilot Projects
 In collaboration with Fundacion Ayuda para Ayudar (Help to Help - APA) the Yucatan Project helps more than 200 individuals start or expand businesses in the following communities:
Petac
Loans have been distributed for honey production and handicrafts and soon the installation of an irrigation system will make small-scale agriculture possible.
Tesoco Nuevo
Funding honey producers to increase their production and commercialize their honey more efficiently. The result of our loans in the Yucatan have been so successful that Fundacion Produce is already helping us build a Honey Processing Plant so that our beneficiaries can avoid the intermediaries and get their honey ready for its consumption in Mexico or the US market through direct assistance of our students and experts.
Tizimin
Working with 100 Mayan women in the production of chili peppers and other crops to be sold at local hotels and, once processed, maybe even the US market. |
