Meet the Warrior Women: Cultivating Change, Growing Hope
Look out world, here come the Warrior Women. Courageous, enthusiastic women from Nicaragua are learning, growing, and paving the way for other women to flourish in agriculture.
Five women — Andria, Ana, Nohemi, Belkis, and another Ana — are working together to provide for their families and their community. For nearly 10 months, these women have partnered with Convoy of Hope to learn better agriculture practices, implement them, then teach other women how to grow their own food.
“As a group, we must share what we have learned with other women so that they, too, can have their own garden where they can grow some vegetables,” they said. “There is no need to have a large area of land to be able to grow food. It can be done from a small area.”
And the Warrior Women are still learning! Recently, they learned they could make compost with the harvest remains. They made compost with cornstalks, banana leaves, and dry leaves they collected.
When they decided to try growing yellow corn for the first time, they had their doubts — they thought the seeds they bought were bad and wouldn’t grow. But when harvesting time came, they found beautiful corn, which they were then able to share with the local school feeding program.
“We believe that we are putting what we have learned into practice in our daily lives,” they said. “With the corn produced, we cooked it and shared it with the children in the cafeteria. It was so delicious that the children asked us for more corn.”
Now, the Warrior Women want to expand their gardens to provide even more food for the children.
“The group of [women] from the community are warriors — women with great courage, enthusiasm, and a spirit of service,” said Fernando, a Convoy of Hope agriculture technician in Nicaragua. “We have often seen them give up their time to help other people. We are so grateful to these sisters for their great contribution.”
“This work that we have done supporting the Agriculture program has brought us other experiences,” the Warrior Women said. “Agriculture is not just a job for men. Now we feel empowered to produce our own food.”
“We are grateful to all … of Convoy of Hope, especially to the facilitators. We believe that they have given us the opportunity to learn, and that is why we now have the experiences to continue improving our lives, our family, and our community.”
