My friend just sent me this & said I could share it with the permies community:
"I’d like to share the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series of documentaries highlighting regenerative/sustainable projects around the world. I’m happy to announce the start of a new
project that I’ve started with my good friend and collaborator Holden Daves of “Nido films” to highlight and promote regenerative projects around the world. Today marks the launch of our first short documentary titled “
Quixaya: Heart of Water.” In this
video I guide viewers through one of the most impressive
land management and community projects that I’ve come across in nearly 14 years of international travel. Quixaya is a small village in rural Guatemala. It was formed when the indentured workers of a monoculture plantation was repossessed by the bank from its owner and redistributed among the indigenous Mayan workers who used to work the farm under slave wage conditions. The original 80 families who took back control of the plantation divided the land equally between themselves so they might care for it and create a better life for their families. Decades later, the decedents of these pioneers have helped to transform the land into the profound abundance which you’ll see in the documentary.
Managed through three primary microclimates:
aquaculture, irrigated gardens, and agroforestry, the owners of each plot are free to manage the land as they see fit. Some have created innovative closed cycle systems with food production for their own consumption and cash crops for sale. Others have leveraged the immense
water resources to make pools and recreational spaces, while others still have created aquaponic systems to breed tilapia.
As amazing as these systems are, Quixaya still faces serious challenges that many other rural communities in Guatemala, and around the world, face. Waste disposal, lack of income and economic resources, and inadequate education. The issues still drive members of the community to abandon their plots to look for jobs in the cities and even migrate to other countries.
This leads me to the requests I’d like to make of you.
For Quixaya:
If you feel inspired by their story I’d be more than happy to put you in direct contact with the leaders and members of the community (though they only speak a Mayan dialect called Kak’chi’quel and Spanish) if you would like to reach out to help them directly.
If you would like to help, but are constrained by time and resources, as many of us are, I would simply ask that you share and repost this video either to contacts in your network that you feel would like to help Quixaya directly, or to your own social networks and media channels.
For the Abundant Edge documentary project:
With the success if this first video, we’re determined to create more high-quality videos like this. We not only want to highlight and promote regenerative projects around the world, but also to educate our viewers on how they can learn and implement the knowledge from these sites in their own lives and communities. Though we are always striving to keep our costs and overheads to a minimum during filming and production, we still need funds to make these films. In return for investment in these projects we will also promote your organization or project as a sponsor of the documentaries that you help us to produce. If this is an option you’d like to explore with us further you can reach out to us directly at
info@abundantedge.com.
If a monetary contribution is not an option at this time, no worries, there are many other ways that you can help to support this project and to get this content out to as many people as possible.
If you know of anyone in your network or among your colleagues that might be interested in supporting this effort, especially if they lead the advertising or marketing for an ethical and
sustainable company or organization, could you please forward this message and video to them. We would love to help use these videos to, not only promote the projects of focus in these documentaries, but also to aid the positive momentum being made by businesses that are working to regenerate the earth and our communities.
If you feel inspired by this, or other videos from
Abundant Edge, we would really appreciate your help in promoting our content through your social media networks, blogs, or other media. Though we are committed to creating stronger, real life connections than many social media platforms create, they remain the most effective avenues to reach a wide audience and get projects like Quixaya in front of the people who will support that community directly.
If you have any ideas other than the ones I listed, such as helping me directly with further education in story-telling, video production, sustainable project support, fund raising or others, I would love to talk about this further.
I would like to thank you in advance, I look forward to being in touch soon.
Regards,
--
Oliver M. Goshey
SEE ALSO:
Centro Eco-productivo y Educativo K'uxya (C.E.P.E.K.): a group of young folks from this Mayan community put together & run an agri-tourism organization for Quixayá
1
