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Puente's work focuses on sustainability by promoting the cultivation and consumption of amaranth. Puente has the following organizational goals for 2008:
- To enable program participants to better the health of their families using amaranth
- To ensure healthier nutritional practices within the villages served
- To meet the current market demands for amaranth through its reintroduction into family farms as an income source
Puente's vision is to permanently reintegrate amaranth into the diet and landscape of rural communities throughout the state of Oaxaca, and to this end Puente has developed three projects that are intertwined. Through the following projects, Puente will directly serve more than 1,120 families in some of Mexico's neediest communities during 2008. We estimate that approximately 9,000 people are indirectly benefited by Puente’s amaranth projects each year.
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Healthy Families: This project began in 2003 when Puente started working with government agencies, schools, and non-profit organizations. Puente leads discussions, activities, and hands-on cooking and planting demonstrations in 20 villages throughout the state of Oaxaca. Puente also distributes amaranth seeds to the participants. The workshops emphasize the importance of good nutritional health and also encourage food sovereignty for families through assistance with individual amaranth gardens and demonstrations of how easily amaranth can be integrated into the daily diet.
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Training Trainers: This project is designed to leverage Puente's limited resources in order to reach as many beneficiaries as possible. Puente works with nonprofit and government organizations to train community development workers to promote amaranth in the villages where they work. Through the capacity building in 150 health workers, this project integrates amaranth into the diet of thousands of Oaxaca's rural poor.
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Training Farmers: Puente educates local farmers to grow, harvest, and sell amaranth, in addition to developing each farmer’s capacity to teach others to do the same. The Training Farmers project increases the availability of amaranth in rural communities while guaranteeing farmers a fair price for their amaranth. In 2008, Puente will train 120 farmers in 12 rural communities to integrate amaranth into their family farms. Participating farmers receive six trainings and three amaranth cooking workshops throughout the year. Trainings focus on planting and cultivating amaranth while also incorporating organic and natural farming practices.
See photos of this project.
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