Our story
Fundación Comunidad y Axión was created in 2006 and works in El Alto, Bolivia. Our activities and our work are dedicated towards children, youth and impoverished migrant women or women who have some history of migration.
We began our service working with groups of educated youth in peripheral zones of El Alto developing and strengthening their thinking skills through analyzing their own realities and creating a vision for the development of the city where they live.
After this experience and a time of reflection and learning we invited a group of mothers to elaborate their vision for the development of El Alto.
The women's vision of development basically repeated the general vision: new airport, more industry, soccer stadium, in short a “modern city”.
To what extent did this group of women capture their deepest vision of life?
We changed the question. How would you like to live in El Alto?
Their responses:
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Better possibilities to guarantee food for their families, specifically their children;
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The desire that their children will grow healthy and study well;
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More trees and greener;
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More respect for elders, children and women.
In summary their desire and the opportunity to live well has always been simmering.
We were formed to serve this population group and one of their immediate and vital needs is food. Without food there is not any kind of sustainable education.
From 2008 to present we have worked with this population in urban organic agriculture, promoting the right to food. The goal is producing to consume, not to sell.
Based on our learning agriculture is not a technique nor an art nor a sophisticated way of producing food, agriculture is a way of life.
In the Andean cosmovision that these populations transmit and share, agriculture is a concrete way of caring for Mother Earth. It is a way of perfecting ourselves as human beings, it is an act of reciprocity to the generosity of Mother Earth, who provides us with what is most essential to live well: clean air, abundant and healthy water, fertile land and food.
Between 2008 and 2022, Fundación Comunidad y Axión has implemented 449 organic urban greenhouses and each one produces, on average, 25 varieties of vegetables, 2 fruit trees, and 12 varieties of ornamental and medicinal plants.
From 2008 to 2022, the Organic Family Greenhouses have contributed about 10,650m2 of new green areas to El Alto and have encouraged the presence of animal biodiversity, such as insects and birds.
These organic greenhouses also provide organic food for neighbours and relatives through sporadic sales at low prices, bartering for other food products and most notably donations to other families who are considered poorer.
While food insecurity is an important problem, the other problem that directly affects the lives of those we work with is climate change.
At Fundación Comunidad y Axión we work together with women, youth and children to create alternatives to the consumerist lifestyle.
We promote connection with both the human community and Mother Earth, this helps strengthen our roots and generates alternative ways of living. Hearts and minds are changing to focus on life and Mother Earth.