SMA PROGRAMS:
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

SMA's Community Development Program uses a planning process which empowers local communities to evaluate their own problems and capabilities, to align their needs with skills and opportunities, and to set direction and organize to achieve specific goals. Throughout this process, the community is supported by SMA, its partner organizations, and other technical advisors.

The following projects emerged from local identification of needs and priorities. Some are being implemented with support from local, state and federal agencies. We are also working in conjunction with the Consejo EcoRegional Sierra Tarahumara A.C. Conservation Program and a number of local and institutional partners on watershed and riparian restoration in a number of communities in the Sierra.

Community Development empowers local communities to set direction and organize to achieve specific goals.

In 2005, SMA co-sponsored a community diagnostic and planning process in eight municipios in the Sierra with participation of over 160 communities and 800 Tarahumara and Tepehuan. The assessment was implemented in two phases by a coalition of associates including CESTAC. Diagnostic and planning was conducted in small groups who set local priorities and proposed solutions.  The results were evaluated by a multidisciplinary team who then proceeded to develop project profiles for feasibility studies and funding. As a result, 51 productive projects were proposed by communities as well as overall needs such as soil and watershed restoration identified.

SEDESOL evaluated the project as the best in Mexico for 2005. However, in the 2006 election year, funding literally went south and no projects were funded by SEDESOL in northern Mexico.  Although progress and funding are slow, projects designed in this process and the community alliances formed provide a long term framework for developing appropriate economic alternatives in the Sierra. With support from SMA, technicians and community partners continue to work on the following projects: