• An integrated approach to technical assistance delivery, encompassing the simultaneous provision of training, productive technologies, marketing tools and small-scale management techniques, has proved successful in attending to participants’ needs.

• Rural non-agricultural microenterprises have proved to be successful only when highly experienced service providers support small numbers of participants selected by vocation and ability.

• The post-conflict context provided a favorable scenario for the acknowledgement of the productive, organizational and subsistence capacity of rural women. The project’s transversal approach to gender issues has proved to be a successful strategy; however better gender-oriented progress and impact indicators need to be included in the monitoring and evaluation processes.

• Actions oriented towards environmental and natural resource management should have a broader geographical coverage in order to be successful and should involve IFAD target populations as well as non-IFAD producers and rural inhabitants in its actions.

In the Words of Our Clients

Forty-five-year-old Manuel Cartajena lives with his wife, María Antonia Palma, and six children in the village of Caserio Los Alas in Canton Las Minas. During the war, the entire family fled to the village of Mesa Grande in Honduras. They returned in 1987, after five years (with the help of UNHCR), only to find their home in shambles. In addition, one of their daughters had developed a severe nervous condition as a result of the instability of living on the border. Manuel says he is very grateful to CORDES, a non-governmental organization (NGO) involved in the implementation of the project. Mauricio Ventura of CORDES worked closely with Manuel to help him improve his farming production through techniques of crop diversification. The project has provided him with three loans, each valid for one year, and he has already paid back 60%. With the money from the loans, Manuel bought seeds and fertilizer. Now he cultivates maize, sorghum, beans and fruit. Everyday the family has a strenuous walk up a mountain, from which the Cerro La Estrella mountain range can be seen in the distance. Their water supply comes from beyond this range. They feel fortunate that the Red Cross has provided them with a water line, and on alternate days they are able to water their crops. Manuel plans to take out another loan shortly . ''I don’t think my family and I would be able to survive without these loans,'' he said. Manuel readily admits that his wife works much harder than he does. María Antonia’s days begin at 5:00 a.m., when she wakes up to prepare a breakfast of maize and tortillas for her family. Then she takes care of the household chores, washes clothes, gathers firewood in the hills and helps her husband in the fields. At 6:00 p.m., her day ends and she has time to spend with her family. Four of the six children go to school. Their daughter María Natalia, 22, works as a maid in San Salvador. When she’s ready for marriage her family will help her choose a partner. ''My dream man is a man who is responsible and who will care for my daughter,'' Manuel said.

Lucía Gajardo, 67, was marked by the war, just like the majority of Salvadorans. Of her eight children, two died fighting in the war. She had to leave her home and was a refugee in Honduras for some time. For several years, she moved continuously. Although war memories remain with her, she stated '' I looked ahead of me and, with the signing of the Peace Accords, a new life started.'' Together with other women, she set up a workshop to produce basic foodstuffs for the community of Dulce Nombre de María. They took a loan from the project and now produce a variety of processed food, which they sell at the market.

María Oliva Vasquez, 58, is from the community of Chicuma. She fled from her community during the war and lived in camps where she looked after the children, protecting them from attack. With the Peace Accords, she returned to Chicuma and obtained a loan to buy land. María Oliva is currently a member of the Rio Lempa Cooperative, and she is also part of a women’s group that produces vegetables under irrigation, for sale. María Oliva has gained the confidence and trust of other women in the area and actively helps them organize themselves and gain self-esteem.

Alicia Guillén de Romero inherited her skills as an agricultural producer from her parents. She lives in the village of Las Pilas, where she practices organic farming. She grows potatoes and cabbages, and currently has 0.35 ha of land on which she also cultivates lettuce, onions and flowers. With the support of Prochalate, she received training and benefited from on-farm demonstrations. She also participated in gender training with her husband and four children and, as a result, now has more time to devote to her social and community activities. The increase in productivity has allowed her to send all four children to school through the high-school level. Her children also help her in the processing, classifying and post-harvesting tasks of her plot. Alicia is very proud of how her family works. Since the gender training, Alicia says, the family is more united. What is to be planted, the distribution of work, how to distribute the income, etc. is discussed among all members of the family. At the beginning, her husband and children were not interested in gender training, but since they had to attend training in technical aspects, such as organic agriculture, marketing, etc., they also attended gender-training activities. With time, theory became practice in Alicia’s home. Alicia and her family are now producing much more and selling their products to two big supermarket chains in El Salvador. The family earns a good income on a weekly basis. Alicia’s children say that they want to follow the example of their parents.

Ignacio Ellacuría, a small farmer, is the leader of a community of 120 rural families. While pointing to his land, he said proudly, ''Now we can plough the land without damaging it and stop erosion. We do not use chemical fertilizers, only organic ones. In this way, I respect nature, and nature feeds me. With the money we received from a loan, we invested in the land and have enough to eat. We have been able to diversify our production, and we can now sell our vegetables and other products at the regional market. Before we were producing only enough to feed ourselves. My dream is that my four children could go to school. I do not want them to have the same hard life I had, or my parents had, and all of my ancestors. It is high time for a change. Prochalate will make that change. I am sure of it.''

Aida Gutierrez, 33 years old, was born into a family of farmers and pig breeders. Aida and her parents, brothers and sisters fled from El Salvador to escape the war. They went to Nicaragua where she worked as a teacher in a rural community, but with the economic crisis, Aida decided to return to her homeland. She arrived in Chalatenango without anything. Her cousin told her about Prochalate, and the fact that the project was giving loans to women without collateral. ''I attended a meeting in Prochalate and asked them whether they could give me funds to set up a small farm to raise chickens,'' she said. ''That same night I wrote a small project describing the farm and how much I needed for infrastructure and seed capital to buy the animals and fodder. I got the loan, and now I run a small farm with 2 500 chickens. The loan was initially to finance 1 000 chickens, but now the business has expanded and I make enough profit to buy more chickens. I feel very happy to be back in my own country and my hometown.''

Former guerrilla María Hernández has four children, ranging from age 19 to 26, as well as three grandchildren. Two of her daughters work as agricultural workers. While she was a guerrilla, she worked as a paramedic. She returned home before the war ended because her mother was sick. Her husband, who was also a guerrilla, died during the civil unrest. María took out her first loan to buy cows, primarily for the purpose of cultivating her land. Now she gets milk from the cows, produces cheese, and the nutritional level in her family has increased. She has also planted fruit trees and has begun breeding chickens with the training she received from Prochalate.

Fifty-two-year-old Lupe Palma Orellana is married and has ten children, ranging from six months to 23 years old. He joined a cooperative and received training in methods to improve his farming. Now he grows maize, sorghum, beans and fruit, including maracuiá. In September of this year, he will have his first harvest of fruit. ''With the diversification of crops, we now earn more and life is less difficult, although it is always hard, very hard,'' he said. ''I hope that at least my younger sons will be able to go to school, because we did not have the opportunity to go, neither did my older children. This project gives us hope for a better future.'' Lupe Palma is always seen carrying a machete. He says it’s a common practice among farmers and that it’s very useful for clearing the path when returning home from the field.

Wilfredo Guardado Alas was 11 years old when the war began. In 1983 he became a guerrilla and, during an explosion, lost his right hand and left’hand fingers. After the war, he says he was motivated to join the Prochalate project to improve his economic and social status. Now he has taken up farming, having received land and credit from the Government. The project provided him with training and technology. He has taken out two loans, which he’s still paying back, and said that he’s quite pleased that he has some stability in his life. With a loan of 1 000 colones (local currency) for poultry and the income earned from his poultry sales, the Alas family has begun diversifying their crops and is now cultivating the fruit maracuiá.

Doña Lucy, a survivor of the River Simpul massacre, owns a tailor shop that she set up after receiving training from the NGO Casart. During the war, an international organization provided her with seed money. Now she has a staff of ten women, working with her, who make handicrafts, bags and table mats for sale.

Francisco Monsía, 64, is considered a model farmer. He understands finances and knows how to obtain benefits. ''A peasant only knows how to grow, whereas a farmer knows how to cultivate,'' he said. He learned organic farming techniques and has been practising organic agriculture for the past five years. Francisco makes his own fertilizer, using onions, garlic and chillis as pesticides. He is convinced that organic products are better, and says that he feels he’s in better health. According to Francisco, consumers prefer his organically produced products. He has begun to sell to supermarkets, and his products are clearly marked to indicate that they are organic and from Las Pilas.

Reina Landaverde developed a successful dress-making business with two loans of 10000 colones. She has already repaid both and is planning to take out another for 15 000 colones. Reina has many faithful clients from San Salvador. She is happy with her work and with what she has achieved. ''I made a great effort to repay the loans,'' she said. ''If possible, I would like to request another one, which could allow us to enlarge our business. The garments, although simple, have great success and we try to sell them at lower prices than the normal shops. The peak of our sales is during the weekends when lots of people come. We even have foreigners coming and buying our products as souvenirs.''

Cruz and Alesia Romero have four children. The entire family works together at home and in the field. ''My husband and my oldest sons did not like this gender question,'' Alesia said. ''At the beginning, they did not want to attend the gender meetings, but later they started to participate. The most important thing is that they have changed their attitude at home. I am no longer the only person at home who does all the housework - my family also participates. They realized that it is fair because I also work in the fields. Gender has united us much more and my husband and children are now more conscious of how difficult it is for a woman to work at home and in the field.''

The Romero family received technical assistance from Prochalate. With the loan they took out, they were able to build a shed for processing farm products. Previously, they were limited to working seasonally, but now they can farm all year-round.

María Guardada received training from Prochalate and has since opened up her own bakery shop. She has six women working for her (several of them single mothers). ''They work with joy and passion,'' María said. ''They do not complain about getting up at four o’clock in the morning to start baking the bread, which they make for the evening. We work in shifts because that way it is not so hard. But, above all, we are working for ourselves, not for a boss. What we earn is for us to live and educate our children. We are also thinking about enlarging our business. All the people come to us to buy bread because it is really good and tasty. Try it.'' The bakery opens at 6:00 a.m. and by 10:00 a.m. everything is sold-out, but they continue working because people come in to buy all day long. They also make delicious cakes.

The interviews were conducted in January 2001.

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