My pal John Paget is down in Oaxaca doing some promotional filming for Floresta a microlender and community development non-profit.

Here’s how Pag describes it:

During the last two days we filmed a number of microenterprise and community development projects in small mountain towns:

• a fruit and vegetable stand and chicken farm business
• a tomato greenhouse
• a water cistern system
• a water filter system
• family gardens
• pine needle basket weaving crafts
• agroforestry farms
• tree nursery
• soil conservation (aka “living barriers”)

I hadn’t investigated Floresta before reading his post. Looks like a very interesting organization:

Floresta was originally developed to meet the environmental, economic and spiritual needs of the rural people of the Dominican Republic. Currently there are over 2000 families who are benefiting from Floresta’s program in Haiti, Mexico and the Dominican Republic: receiving loans, training in sustainable agriculture and reforestation, assistance in community organizing, capacity building, and marketing assistance. (source)

I’m always skeptical when the “spiritual” is thrown in there. Who knows what that means…

But I’m curious to know more about how they choose their local partners and the effectiveness of their programs.