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Latin America has long been thought of in terms of its Spanish and indigenous roots, a view that obscures a significant African heritage. Statistically, the 150 million African descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean make up a third of the region's population yet comprise nearly 50 percent of its poor. For many African descendants, the crippling cycle of poverty is complicated by isolation, exclusion and discrimination.
African descendants have always been well represented among the beneficiaries of the IAF's projects and some beneficiary populations have been exclusively African descendent. Recently, as African descendants have rallied to their identity in greater numbers, the IAF has staked out a leadership position among donors, supporting the grassroots development efforts of incipient as well as more established organizations of African descendants. Additionally, the IAF has supported conferences, educational activities and networking opportunities with a variety of organizations representing African descendants.
Recent projects:
Many Afro-Ecuadorians live in the provinces of Esmeraldas and Carchi, where Fundación para el Desarrollo de Alternativas Comunitarias de Conservación del Trópico (ALTROPICO) is working with 10 small community-run businesses to increase income and reduce dependency on exploitative lenders by strengthening community banks. Since receiving its first disbursement, ALTROPICO has trained more than 900 Afro-Ecuadorians, representing more than 40 community banks, in financial management, basic accounting and the importance of credit and savings. The banks have increased their membership to more than 1,300 people and their total loan capital to $175,000. Most loans extended are invested in agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers.
Federación Nacional de Organizaciones No Gubernamentales para el Desarrollo de las Comunidades Afrocolombianas (FEDEAFRO) received an IAF grant to conduct research using the Colombian national census to assess the allocation of public resources for social services in selected low-income Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities in the municipalities of Cali and Buenaventura. Afro-Colombian and indigenous students are receiving training to become research assistants. They also received a supplemental grant to produce a book and video based on the research.
Sustainable Harvest International–Belize helps 250 farmers of indigenous, Garifuna and Creole descent manage their farms sustainably by applying farming methods compatible with the responsible use of the environment and is helping them to market their crops for a better income.
Fonkoze works with members of the Haitian Home Town Associations Resource Group (HHTARG) in Boston, New York and Miami to provide pilot subgrants to grassroots groups and small and medium-sized enterprises in Haiti. Applying this experience, Fonkoze and HHTARG are designing a community investment fund that will channel Diaspora resources to grassroots development in Haiti.
Fundación Proyecto Paria (FPP) is working to raise the income of Venezuelan farmers, most of African descent, by training them in organic farming methods that should lead to certification and by helping them form an association capable of directly marketing their cacao for export. Farmers report that they increased the return on their product from $4.65 to $6.05 per kilo.
Additional Reading(s):
Lessons of the Elders: Juan García and the Oral Tradition of Afro-Ecuador
When the National Museum of African American History and Culture opens in 2015 on the Mall in Washington, D.C., among the thousands of artifacts from the African experience in the Americas will be a small carved stool of clear tropical hardwood etched with a spider web motif. The stool was shaped to fit in a narrow dugout canoe that carried Deborah Azareno on the rivers of Ecuador’s Esmeraldas province more than 60 years ago. After poling the canoe into the muddy banks near where the Rio Santiago empties into the Pacific, she would carry the stool into her home and sit on it as she told her grandson stories. In 2005, long before ground was broken on the Mall, her stool became the museum’s first official acquisition. This is how that came about… Read more