Fuel-Efficient Stoves: Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico

Dear GlobalGiving Supporters,

Thank you for being part of this journey. Your generosity continues to uplift women leaders, protect forests, and improve food security across Mesoamerica. In 2024 and early 2025, we’ve built a total of 460 fuel-efficient stoves—an achievement made possible by your support. And we’re not stopping there—our goals for the rest of the year are bold and inspiring! We’re proud to share a story that reflects the deep and lasting impact of your commitment, one rooted in resilience, leadership, and tradition.

In the highlands of Totonicapán, Guatemala, where the air is crisp and the pine trees stretch toward the sky, Doña Catarina walks through the rows of her family garden, inspecting the chard, onions, and fava beans that now grow beside her traditional corn.

A single mother from the village of Casa Blanca in the 48 Cantones region, Doña Catarina is a respected leader, a speaker of K’iche’, and a woman who has dedicated more than 15 years to organizing her community. This year, with support from EcoLogic and the Junta Directiva de Bienes y Recursos Naturales de los 48 Cantones, her leadership helped bring agroforestry systems, fuel-efficient stoves, and food security solutions to families in her village.

“I’ve always believed that women have the power to care for the land and lead their communities,” she says. “With each project, we grow stronger.”

In 2024, Doña Catarina helped implement family gardens using native crops, promoted the adoption of Justa Chapina fuel-efficient stoves to reduce firewood use and smoke inhalation, and encouraged other women to participate in agroforestry systems that now blend traditional crops like corn and fava with trees like alder, apple, and peach.

She also played a key role in strengthening women's economic autonomy through local microenterprises and supported younger women in learning to lead. Her ability to weave together tradition, innovation, and community vision exemplifies EcoLogic’s mission: conservation that is led by — and for — the people who depend on the land.

Because of you, women like Doña Catarina are transforming landscapes and lives across Totonicapán. Your support helps preserve native biodiversity, reduce environmental harm, and uplift rural leadership. Thank you for standing with us—and with them—as we build a more sustainable future, one seed, one stove, and one story at a time.

In solidarity,

Mario Ardany de Leon, Guatemala Program Officer