Light a Single Candle Foundation has the privilege of working with many new and many repeat partners in a common mission to serve the poor. Here are some of our featured projects:
Economic Sustainability
Cosecha Foundation: Building Income & Resiliency with Smallholder Communities
This project enabled 200 farming families in Jinotega, Nicaragua to participate in the outreach program, receiving 50 trees and the training and technical assistance required to be successful, high performing coffee-macadamia farmers. Within the first year, annual income per capita has increased by 118% from coffee cultivation. The percentage of households living below the poverty line, with an income of less than $3/day has decreased from 70% to 30%.
Creamos: Workforce Development in the Culinary Arts in Zone 3 Guatemala City
This workforce development program aims to provide culinary arts and barista training to 75 women in Guatemala City, Guatemala. This training will allow them to grow their earnings from roughly $100 a month to roughly $600.
Cross Catholic Outreach: Humanity & Hope: Cattle Production
Humanity & Hope expanded to its third cattle production business in Callo De Piedra Honduras. In 12 months, this project created 17 new jobs, decreased the rate of stunting for children in the community and increased monthly income from $132.15 to $285.07.
Cross Catholic Outreach: Hogar San Jose: Vocational Training
This funding provided the opportunity for 10 people at Hogar San Jose in San Pedro Sula, Honduras to receive formal culinary training, and in turn, they would train 31 additional residents in culinary arts. It also provided new kitchen and bakery equipment to allow Hogar San Jose to drastically increase the amount of food they can produce, increasing sales 10x.
Cross Catholic Outreach: Amigos Salud de Vida: Guate ACCESS Year 2
This funding supported the second year of a project that was focused on income generation for 173 farmers and their families and to eradicate malnutrition for 1,673 families in the Panzos Region in the departments of Alta Verapaz and Izabal, Guatemala. It succeeded in increasing the harvest income for 64% of the farmers by 9%.
EcoLogic Development Fund: Income Generation for Resilience in Three Communities in Rural Guatemala
This project aimed to generate income for rural and indigenous families across 3 communities in Ixcan, Guatemala by establishing 50 agroforestry parcels, and training for 80 beekeepers and the introduction of a second revenue source of cardamom. EDF estimates that there will be an average household income of 9% within 24 months, increasing from an average of $6,772/year to $7,344/year.
Groundswell International, Inc.: Agroecological Farming and Sustainable Market Access Project
This program supports 375 individuals to sustainably improve livelihoods, strengthen food security and increase production through training and community groups across 3 departments of Haiti. The goal is to increase the income levels at least 15% within the year, from approximately $710 to approximately $821 across each of the 75 households in this project.
Help for Haiti: Supporting Financial Resilience for Haitian Communities through Entrepreneurship Training
This is continued support of the One Hen Adult Entrepreneurship Program (OHAEP) entrepreneurship training program for 125 participants in Cap Haitien and 325 participants in rural Marmalade. This program helped individuals in Cap Haitien to open business, increasing their annual income, and helped participants in Marmalade to increase the average income per market day from $5 to $11.69.
iDE: Catalyzing Income and Resilience for Smallholder Farmers of La Paz, Honduras
The project aims to increase the average net income of the 35 households of lettuce producers in La Paz, Honduras by 10% within 9 months with an aspiration of a 15% increase in following years.
Partners Worldwide: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty for Small-Scale Honduran Farmers through Increased Self-Sustainability
This program supported 34 marginalized farmers in Olancho, Honduras by strengthening their access to the global marketplace, connecting them to competitive financial services, creating sustainable employment opportunities, and creating rural business networks that provide essential technical support, crop storage, and logistics. In 2023, they saw a 42% average increase in income by selling coffee at higher prices in international markets.
Semilla Nueva: Gene Editing for Highlands Biofortified Maize
This project is focused on developing the first biofortified maize seeds for high elevations (> 1,800 meters) in Guatemala using gene editing techniques. This will aim to increase yields by 20% and agricultural income by at least $100 for small highland maize farmers, as well as increasing nutritional content.
Semilla Nueva: Scaling Biofortified Seeds in Guatemala Year 3
Scaling Biofortified Seeds aims to increase the reach of biofortified seeds in Guatemala with the opportunity to reach 44,500 families using biofortified seed, make investments for future expansion of its research and policy efforts with the ultimate aim to provide nutrient enhanced seed for 200,000 farming families within a 10-year goal.
Semilla Nueva – Subsistence Farmers
This program aims increase the number of non-hybrid farmers in Guatemala who buy biofortified seed with the goal of increasing the farmers yield and income by an average of $100-$200. This program will promote the adoption of biofortified hybrids among farmers and improve purchase rates through a pilot discount program, strengthened agrodealer partnerships, and promotional efforts to achieve the target of 3,388 new farmers buying seed for the first time in 2024.
Strategies for International Development: Graduating Coffee Farmers from Poverty in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala
This is the 4th year of a 5-year program focused on expanding assistance to coffee growers in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala to increase productivity, increase the price they earn from coffee, increase their income, increasing husking practices by 30% and improve conservation practices for 3,265 families in 121 communities. In the first 3 years of the project, they have increased productivity from 5.5 bags of dry coffee per manzana to 13.8 bags. 20% of the coffee produced is now being husked by farmers thus guaranteeing better prices and 63% of the farmers have adopted soil conservation practices that will make their farms more sustainable.
Trickle Up: PROINSA: Programa de Inclusión social y Seguridad Alimentaria
PROINSA aims to build social and economic inclusion for 500 marginalized women in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala living significantly below the poverty line through financial literacy, skill development, productive assets, and social capital, along with consumption support, and to ultimately increase all incomes to $2.45 per person, per day.
Food Security
Cross Catholic Outreach: Casa Nino Esperanza: Nutrition & Education Program
The nutrition & education program provided 140 students with nutritious meals, educational support and scholarships, and additional food baskets for their families in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
Cross Catholic Outreach: Diocese of Escuintla: Home Gardens Project Expansion – Phase 2
This is Phase 2 of a project that extended the opportunity to 150 new families in Guatemala to establish family gardens for personal consumption and the sale of surplus produce, as well as technical training and supervision, while continuing to work with 194 families from Phase 1. Of the Phase 1 families, there has been a 7.5% increase in productivity within their gardens.
Cross Catholic Outreach: Medicines for Humanity: Improving Nutritional Access & Outcomes in El Puerto
This program aimed to improve nutritional outcomes for children, mothers and pregnant and lactating women through a mobile nutrition program, training of 5 Clinical Health Workers and a community garden in 3 bateyes in El Puerto, Dominican Republic
Esperanza Juvenil: Boys Hope Girls Hope: Supporting Essentials to Elevate Hope and Empower Futures in Guatemala
This provided support to STEAM programming to 146 enrolled at Esperanza Juvenil in Guatemala City, Guatemala, as well as 1 year of nutritious meals. This project aims to have 60% of students to improve or maintain strong academic performance of 85 points or higher, and 40% will improve or maintain a GPA of 70 points or higher.
Feed My Starving Children: International Food Relief
In 2023, Feed My Starving Children provided 448 million meals to over 112,000,000 children internationally.
Meds & Food for Kids: UNICEF’s Urgent Call for Increased Nutritional Food in Response to Devastating Global Malnutrition
This helped to provide support to Meds & Food for Kids with the ability to receive a loan in order to drastically scale up their production of plumpy nut to meet the orders placed by Unicef and the World Food Program to decrease malnutrition in Haiti.
NPH USA: St. Damien Nutrition Programming
This provided support to St. Damien Hospital’s Nutrition Programming in Haiti.
Other Recovery
Global Learning Exchange Initiative
Open Books Open Minds – Teacher Training and Student Learning Recovery – Open Books Open Minds provided 40 new teachers with the Open Books Open Minds Curriculum training, school supplies and teacher stipends to improve the academic success of 1600 students within multiple regions in Guatemala. This program will also provide workshops and refresher courses to the 179 teachers that have already completed the Open Books Open Mind training. The goal of this program is to increase the percentage of students reading above grade level from 6% to 15% in 2024.
New Roots Haiti
This provides staffing support for a chicken farm, computer lab equipment, and support for piloting a media communication and arts job training program in Cap Haitien, Haiti.
Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL): Operational Support
SOIL provides full-cycle sanitation services from containment to reuse by taking a circular economy approach. By providing toilets and removing waste from communities, SOIL is preventing the spread of waterborne disease, increasing families’ safety and security, and protecting vulnerable aquatic ecosystems. SOIL then safely treats the collected waste and transforms it into compost which is sold to support agriculture, reforestation, and climate change mitigation efforts in Haiti.
Relief
Convoy of Hope: General Support for Haiti
This provides support to the work that Convoy of Hope is doing in Haiti.
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