BelRiv project gets Canadian funding

You may start seeing jams, jellies and fruit wines produced in the Belize River Valley at your favorite stores within the next few months. Today the Belize River Valley Development Program, BelRiv got a fifteen thousand dollar grant from the Canadian Consulate to help fund a project for the women from the nine communities which make up BelRiv. The organization is also embarking on a food security program and will begin with rice growing, vegetable, corn and bean production and small scale chicken rearing.

Saritia Moody, President, Ladies Group

“We wanted to do something with the lot of fruit that wastes out there every year. And this is an opportunity for us to start to do something with this little grant that we got from Canada Fund, that we are so grateful for. And further on down the line, we will try and build up on what we got, then we can do much more other projects.”

Lascelle Bowen, BelRiv

“The real fact is right now many people wait on pickup trucks to buy basic food stuffs. We want to break that cycle of dependency. I don’t know what you call it, but we see trucks come in with things like cabbages, oranges and so on and people buy it. We say that we can’t do that in an area like the Belize River Valley, one of the lushest pieces of this jewel, grows anything, anytime. So we held a meeting and Godwin and his group got together and they set targets for next year. One of those targets is five hundred thousand pounds of paddy. He has gotten a mill and so it’s like the area having its own rice mill.”

According to Bowen, the activities are part of the MesoAmerican Corridors Project. Other areas which fall under the Corridors Project are community ecotourism, reforestation and environmental education. Nine villages are included in BelRiv: Bermudan Landing, Scotland Half Moon, Double Head Cabbage, Flowers Bank, Isabella Bank, St. Paul’s Bank, Rancho Dolores and Lord’s Bank. The National Organization for the Prevention of Child Abuse, NOPCA also received a sizable grant of fifty thousand dollars from the Canada Fund today. It will help NOPCA continue their public and parent education programs, life skills for young adults and their support network for adults. The Canada Fund for local initiatives has been assisting organizations in Belize since 1985. Contact the Canadian Consulate for information on applying for the next funding cycle which begins in April.