Community Life:
- Chuacacay is located three miles from the county seat of Santa Apolonia and 28 miles from the departmental (state) capital of Chimaltenango.
- The village was founded 125 years ago by five Maya Kaqchikel families. Its population is now made up of 110 families.
- “Chuacacay” means “the place of the shelter” in Kaqchikel (“Chua” means “place”; “Cacay” means “shelter,” or “hut.”). The town was named this way because there was a shelter where traders traveling from Quiché to Tecpán spent the night.
- The road between the community and Santa Apolonia is mostly paved, but in normal conditions, there is only public transport between these two areas on the two “market days” each week. When the people of Chuacacay need to travel during the rest of the week, they have to try to secure a ride from someone with private transportation.
- The community has a kindergarten and primary school.
- Chuacacay families work primarily in subsistence agriculture, and some grow vegetables to sell, with the land being rented in most cases. Some also work cultivating vegetables in the larger nearby farms, for which they receive about $4 per day.
Our Partnership:
When we began working with Chuacacay in 2013, 69 percent of the community’s children under five suffered from chronic malnutrition. As of June 2015, when our programs were completed, that rate had been reduced to 48 percent.
Integrated Approach to Development:
Chuacacay completed our full integrated approach in June 2015. Together we implemented the following program components:
- Community Mobilization and Empowerment: Complete
- Nutrition: Complete
- Water, Sanitation & Hygiene: Complete
- Food Security (Sustainable Agriculture): Complete
- Family Planning: Complete
- Disaster Risk Reduction: Complete
See more about how we work in our partner communities
Community Perspectives:
“ABPD has come to help the community very much. Before, we suffered from many needs. Most families did not have a latrine, so there were feces all around the community and people got sick all the time because of this. Now, all the families have a latrine and we feel much healthier.”
-Roselia Chalí (42)