GreatNonprofits: World Neighbors

Editor's note: Each week throughout the month of April, GreatNonprofits will feature an organization that is doing great environmental work. This week, they share the story of World Neighbors.

At only 22 years old, Julian Vasquez, a farmer in the Polochic valley in Guatemala, wanted nothing more than to make life better for his family using the small piece of land that belonged to his mother.  His crops yields were low and not sufficient to support his family. There was a nonprofit, World Neighbors, that had been teaching other local farmers about ways to increase their crop yield. Julian decided to participate in one of their trainings. Through the training, Julian learned crucial agricultural skills, including learning to implement an irrigation system using an old plastic soda bottle in order to conserve rainwater during the dry seasons.

“Before World Neighbors, my field did not look like this,” Julian said. “It instead was full of weeds and couldn’t produce a healthy crop. World Neighbors taught me to terrace my field to prevent erosion and to improve the health of my soil using organic compost.”

World Neighbors is a nonprofit that trains and educates communities to find lasting, environmentally sustainable solutions to the challenges they face – hunger, poverty and disease – rather than giving them food or money.  They make long term commitments and work in remote villages throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. They teach practical skills, such as how to naturally filter water, increase crop yields without using pesticides, and monitor and evaluate ecosystem degradation.

“There are villages in rural India where World Neighbors first worked in the late 1950s that are still thriving in ways that neighboring communities have never done,” writes one board member. “It is hard to find other development programs that have achieved such long lasting success.”

Its various training and education programs have helped 25 million people in 45 countries since 1951. World Neighbors is a 2011 Top-Rated environmental nonprofit.

To learn more about World Neighbors visit: www.wn.org.

World Neighbors is a GreatNonprofits 2011 Top-Rated environmental nonprofit. GreatNonprofits.org is a free, nonprofit website where you can write or read reviews of nonprofits.