Manos Campesinas
Manos Campesinas · Guatemala
About this project
Manos Campesinas conducted a thorough baseline evaluation across their membership to identify specific points of vulnerability. What they found points to three interlocking crises: economic over-reliance on coffee as the sole income source, growing water scarcity driven by climate change, and the health and environmental costs of cooking over wood fires — a burden that falls disproportionately on women.
Collecting and burning wood for cooking is time-consuming, contributes to deforestation, and exposes women to smoke-related respiratory illness daily. Improved cookstoves reduce wood usage by 30–40%, protect women's health, and free up significant time. Water reservoirs address the increasingly urgent need to capture and store rainfall during wet periods for use through droughts. And agroforestry diversification — fruit trees, vegetable horticulture, chickens — builds income resilience so that a bad coffee harvest doesn't mean a food crisis.
The impact fund approved $12,500 to pilot this model: 5 improved stoves and 1 water reservoir. This smaller pilot is intentional — it allows the cooperative to test adoption, refine training, and build a participatory maintenance model before scaling the program across more members.
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Project goals
Install 5 improved cookstoves in a pilot group of member households, targeting a 35% reduction in wood fuel use — reducing deforestation pressure, cutting smoke exposure for women and children, and freeing time for other productive activities.
Establish 1 pilot water reservoir to capture and store rainwater, building hands-on participatory training around maintenance so the model can be expanded across more farms in future funding cycles.
Implement agroforestry diversification across 30 farms — fruit trees, horticulture, and chickens — to build non-coffee income streams and improve household food security, targeting a 10% increase in non-coffee income.
Who this supports
Project updates
June 2026 — Funding approved
The Cooperative Coffees impact fund approved $12,500 for a pilot phase of Manos Campesinas' climate resilience project — covering 5 improved cookstoves, 1 water reservoir, and agroforestry diversification across 30 farms.
Updates coming as the pilot launches. Check back soon.